#genuinely tired of people saying that I’m wrong to not like Hamilton

[nemesis-dreamer]

My hot take is that I don’t like Hamilton. It’s a hot take because every time I say I don’t like Hamilton, someone says to give it a chance. My brother in Christ, it’s been years, you’re not going to change my mind.

#genuinely tired of people saying that I’m wrong to not like Hamilton #genuinely just dislike Lin’s music #some are good but as a whole I never want to watch Hamilton again #I don’t like Hamilton even after watching and listening to the whole discography and that’s ok #I just wish Stans would just leave me alone😭 #Hamilton #yes I do like hip hop dammit #so glad I wasn’t here for the depths of tumblr Hamilton obsession #they would’ve eaten me alive

[anextraordinarymuse]

How are you feeling about Nathan and Nathan and Elizabeth right now? Do you feel like the show has destroyed him? Just, how are you feeling about all this—what are your thoughts?

Oh anon, I’m so glad you asked. Buckle up! We’re going for a ride.

I would marry Nathan Grant this instant if 1) I wasn’t already married, and 2) he wasn’t a fictional character. 

Nathan is not even remotely close to being destroyed for me. I love and adore him as much right now as I ever have. I absolutely, wholeheartedly disagree with anyone who says that Nathan was in any way responsible for what happened to Jack, to any degree. That’s just ridiculous. By that same line of thinking, then Jack was responsible for Doug’s death in season 3 or 4 (I can’t remember). I don’t remember anyone pointing fingers at Jack for that series of events. And you know what? By the line of thinking that I’ve seen in regards to Nathan and the secret, then Jack would actually have been more responsible for Doug’s death than Nathan was for Jack’s. Jack declined his orders to go to the Northern Territories. He straight up said “sorry, but no” because Elizabeth wanted him to stay, and he wanted to stay with her. Nathan did no such thing. He made a decision to chase bad guys - which was in line with his job, if not his direct orders - and was disciplined for disobeying orders. That led to Jack being asked to lead the training mission. Not Nathan’s refusal of orders. So ... nope. Jack wasn’t responsible for Doug’s death, and Nathan wasn’t responsible for Jack’s death. Also, depending on who you are and what you believe, it could almost be said that Jack should have died in Doug’s place, and because he didn’t that meant he was going to die in Nathan’s place. There is a macabre sort of symmetry to it: Doug dies in Jack’s place, Jack dies in Nathan’s place. That’s full circle. 

Now, I’m not saying that I believe that. Just pointing it out. I believe that Jack died because of an accident. No one is at fault. It just happened, because sometimes bad things happen. And I understand how difficult it would have been for Nathan to tell Elizabeth that, especially as they got to know one another and he started to fall in love with her. Not telling her doesn’t make him evil or a bad person or whatever - it just makes him human. He knew that it would hurt Elizabeth, and you never want to hurt the people you love. 

I’ve seen various other criticisms of Nathan, of course. I’ve seen some comments saying that he’s too aggressive in his pursuit of Elizabeth, and to that I say that I don’t think I’m watching the same show. Nathan has never been aggressive with Elizabeth in any way. I could literally write a book about that argument, but I won’t, because I still have a lot of other points to cover. 

So, no. I don’t think the show ruined Nathan. I think some people are just ready to hate him for any reason, and if that’s how they feel then ... well, I don’t care, actually. The great thing about fandom is that you get to choose how you engage with it, and I’m not interested in those points of view. Other people’s dislike or outright hatred of Nathan does not dim my love of him one whit. 

As far as Nathan and Elizabeth are concerned, I am tired, but I have absolute faith that they will be together by the end of the season. Nathan is Elizabeth’s “next great love” (words used by Erin Krakow); we’ve always been moving toward their end game, and despite how rocky and painful and awkward the journey has become, that end game hasn’t changed. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of reasons why I know that:

Quality of storytelling: Nathan and Elizabeth have the highest quality of storylines both separately and together. Their storylines focus on real and important values such as family, forgiveness, growth, loss, etc. I’ve mentioned this before, but pretty much from their first interaction we are shown that Nathan and Elizabeth are a team. They are united. Elizabeth is the first person to welcome Nathan to HV, and she shares a personal story of her first days in the town and how challenging they were. It’s the first thread that connects them. Also, I should point out that the first time Nathan meets Elizabeth he delivers a measure of relief for her in the form of Jack’s pension. We know that Elizabeth makes money from her teaching, and that her family in Hamilton would probably never let her want for money, but still. Receiving Jack’s pension undoubtedly relieved a financial burden for her (as evidenced by her reaction to seeing the amount). Anyway, the themes of team and unity keep going from there. Elizabeth helps Nathan search for Allie; they have to work together to correct Allie’s behavior and reassure her; Elizabeth distracts Amos Dixon while Nathan is infiltrating the saloon to catch him; etc. These themes are not present in Elizabeth’s relationship with Lucas. All of Lucas’s storylines are impersonal, with the exception of the one with his parents in season 8 and the little bit of backstory we got with the Amos Dixon incident. The work and effort that has gone into telling Nathan’s story, and Nathan and Elizabeth’s story, is absent from Lucas’s plotlines both with and without Elizabeth. Another point: whereas Elizabeth’s first interaction with Nathan ties that first thread of connection between them, her first interaction with Lucas starts them off on the wrong foot: Lucas asks her where her husband is and if he’ll be joining her. Elizabeth immediately walks away from him and Rosie and Lee have to tell Lucas about Jack. 

Depth of interactions: At this point, the lack of any real depth between Lucas and Elizabeth is absolutely intentional. I think it always has been, but now there’s just no question. Almost every interaction between Nathan and Elizabeth has depth. They can’t help it - they’re not really surface level people. Helen Bouchard tells Elizabeth this season that she knows that Elizabeth is a person who feels things deeply, and I think we know by now that Nathan is as well. They bring that level of feeling to their interactions. They argue, they flirt, they talk about the hard things. Pain, loss, distrust, obstacles ... we never see that depth between Lucas and Elizabeth. The one hard thing they talk about is the reveal of Helen’s secret, and it’s important to note that in that interaction Elizabeth calls out Lucas’s comment for what it is: cruel. “What would you know about it?” Uncalled for. This is the only time we really see Elizabeth and Lucas argue, and Lucas doesn’t meet Elizabeth’s depth here. She tells him something meaningful - that maybe Helen had to be the first one to reach out, and that love should be fought for - and Lucas responds with a cruel comment and walks off. That was intentional on the writers’ part. When Nathan and Elizabeth argue they get heated, but they do not attack each other. That’s an important distinction. They’re not trying to hurt each other. Now, I’m sure someone will point out that in Nathan and Elizabeth’s most recent argument about Allie, Elizabeth says “now you’re just being hurtful” when Nathan tells Elizabeth she originally wasn’t invited. Guess what? Cruel and hurtful don’t mean the same thing. Cruel means: willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it.” Whereas the definition of hurtful is: “causing distress to someone’s feelings.” I would say there’s a huge difference in those two words. Plus, even though it may have hurt Elizabeth to hear it, what Nathan said was true. It was not an insult, or a petulant remark said in anger. In fact, while Nathan is irritated and kinda snarky, I’d say he’s not really even that angry in the scene where Elizabeth confronts him. They bicker, but he doesn’t lose his temper like he did in the cabin scene in season 7. In fact, in all of the times that Nathan and Elizabeth have argued their disagreements have never been mean spirited or intentionally hurtful. 

But it’s not just that. When Nathan loses his temper in the cabin scene, he says “you both could have died!” When Elizabeth confronts him in the Mountie office the next day, she says “please stop shutting me out!” These are not surface level arguments - they’re not arguing about Elizabeth’s inability to decide what she wants for dinner. (Sorry, had to throw in a joke). They’re arguing over deep concerns: bodily harm, and emotional withdrawal. I find it interesting that Nathan displayed concern about Elizabeth’s physical safety and Elizabeth over his emotional withdrawal, considering that at the end of season 7 and now in season 8 we’re seeing an Elizabeth who is terrified of losing Nathan (physical safety) and a Nathan who has had to weather Elizabeth’s emotional withdrawal. Who’s shutting who out now, Elizabeth? I digress. 

Another thing of note: we’ve never actually heard Nathan tell Elizabeth that she’s beautiful, and we’ve never actually heard Lucas tell her anything but she’s beautiful. Interesting contrast. Nathan says, “You matter to me,” “you’re quite the teacher,” “I’m glad the publisher realized how special you are. He’s not the only one,” and of course, “I love/am in love with you.” Even Nathan’s compliments go beyond surface level. Whereas Lucas tells her she’s beautiful, and that he’s so glad to have her in his life. Again, depth vs. surface level. I do remember that in the first episode of season 7, I believe, when Nathan says that he was never engaged with school Lucas butts in and says “that’s probably because you never had a teacher like Elizabeth.” I tend to disregard this compliment though, because it didn’t feel genuine. Lucas butts in to a conversation that Nathan and Elizabeth are having and then compliments her - it feels like a showboat move. In contrast, all of Nathan’s compliments have been sincere and given in private, without anyone else around. 

I was going to make a separate point for this, but I actually think it belongs here: the depth of Nathan’s gift giving/wooing vs. Lucas’s is also very apparent. Nathan gives her personal, humble gifts: an apple, a hand carved wooden sign with a quote from her favorite poet (which she mentioned once, to someone else), a moment of relief when he offers to hold baby Jack at the christening party. Lucas’s gifts are more grandiose, but impersonal: flowers, fancy dates, etc. The two sweetest things Lucas has done for her, in my opinion, were when he gave her the binoculars to take for the kids on their trip to the woods, and the Virginia Wolff trip. Note, I don’t mean the dinner out of town or the picnic on the way there: I mean the fact that Lucas bought tickets to go see a reading of an author that he didn’t particularly like because he thought Elizabeth would like them. Granted, I didn’t like the way he sprung them on her, but it was still a very thoughtful gesture. 

Wardrobe: Costume and set designers will tell you all the time that they make conscious decisions about who wears what, and when. Nathan and Elizabeth are always dressed in complementary colors. They match, or at least blend well; Lucas and Elizabeth are often mismatched or outright clashing. Elizabeth and Nathan generally dress in lighter colors, whereas Lucas dresses in darker colors. Also worth noting is that we have seen several instances of Nathan and baby Jack being dressed alike, and Allie and Elizabeth being dressed in similar/complementary colors. 

Family Imagery: the amount of family imagery that we are presented with in regards to Nathan, Elizabeth, Allie, and baby Jack is impossible to miss. They pick out and decorate a Christmas tree together in a warmly lit home with a combination of Elizabeth’s decorations and Nathan and Allie’s; even though it doesn’t happen, the first time Nathan asks Elizabeth to dinner they go as a family unit; Elizabeth brings over cupcakes for the sleepover and helps Nathan loosen up by flirting with him in the middle of his kitchen, with an apron on; these are all intimate, family oriented scenes. 

Shows of fear/worry/concern: look at Elizabeth’s face any time Nathan is heading into danger, might be in danger, or just generally might be unsafe in any way. She is visibly distressed every time. She’s also distressed every time Nathan gives her the cold shoulder/tries to back off/resorts to any kind of formality. We’re always shown this moment of fear for her, and usually some kind of scene after that shows us the aftermath. For example: after the fight in the cabin, when they’re back in town it looks like Nathan might be about to apologize and Florence interrupts him and he leaves to find Lee; we get the scene of Elizabeth confronting him the following day. After that confrontation, we get Nathan showing up at night and telling her “you matter to me.” Elizabeth asks Lucas to dance and then sees a crestfallen Nathan leaving the saloon; in the next episode (even though it’s the first episode of the following season) we see Elizabeth purposely approach Nathan in the street with a sweet but awkward comment about Allie’s book report on Queen Victoria. We’ve only seen two real moments of danger for Lucas: the Amos Dixon situation, and the oil derrick explosion. In the Amos Dixon incident, Elizabeth is angry with Lucas for endangering her; in the oil derrick explosion, we actually don’t get a scene addressing that other than the one where Elizabeth stops Helen and tells her that she’s sure Lucas is fine. Interesting differences, I’d say. This also ties into the previous point about the emotional depth that exists between Nathan and Elizabeth, but not Elizabeth and Lucas. Other than the hug, of course, which was a huge display of fear and emotion from Elizabeth, I'd also point you to the scene at the end of 8x01 when Elizabeth is waiting on her porch for Nathan to come home. She can hardly breathe when she sees him ride up. Watch the way she breathes - she inhales so deeply that it makes her collarbones stick out sharply, and her expression is intense. The way she says "you made it home" is so tense and shaky!

The pursuer vs the pursued: This is a huge point, and difference. In the Elizabeth and Lucas relationship, Lucas is the pursuer; in the Nathan and Elizabeth relationship, Elizabeth is the pursuer. Lucas inserts himself in conversations that Elizabeth and Nathan are having, he repeatedly asks her to dinner and surprises her with things (like the Virginia Wolff tickets, and sending her manuscript to his mother, etc). At first, Elizabeth seems hesitant about these things: she turns him down once for dinner, hesitates over the tickets, then finally sits down to dinner with him but won't call it a date. To me, the relationship between Lucas and Elizabeth seems to come about mostly because he wears her down. Elizabeth only really goes to Lucas and opens the door for a relationship after Nathan's profession of love. That certainly makes it seem like she's not so much running to Lucas as she is running away from Nathan. In comparison, we have a whole bunch of examples of Elizabeth being the one to pursue some sort of relationship with Nathan. Not necessarily a romantic one (at least purposely) but every time Nathan tries to leave Elizabeth alone and put distance between them, she closes that gap by figuratively running straight at him. Calling him out for shutting her out, finding excuses to talk to him (like Allie's book report), basically telling him that she went to Union City with Lucas because Nathan wouldn't ask her out. Now, in season 8 I would say that we've taken a fairly hard turn and Nathan has now taken the lead as the pursuer and Elizabeth is the pursued ... which is mostly true. I think one of the key takeaways on this point, and up to this point in the show, is that Elizabeth and Nathan can't help but pursue each other. It's a frustrating game of cat and mouse. But, it's true: even though they're on shaky ground and things are complicated, we still see Elizabeth and Nathan running to each other as much as they run away. Nathan does so in obvious ways, but Elizabeth is more subtle. She sends him that note about missing the parent teacher conference and then they have that conversation in her living room; Elizabeth follows Allie as she barges in on the inquiry and then waits outside with her, and they're together when Nathan emerges; Nathan invites her to the adoption ceremony, they share the moment outside the infirmary, Elizabeth stops him to ask about the stolen car outside the mercantile; Elizabeth and Allie upset each other and Elizabeth runs straight to Nathan. No matter how they have tried not to, it's clear at this point that they will always gravitate to one another. In support, in argument, in misunderstanding, in triumph ... they just keep going for one another.

This, I think, has been the point of having Lucas witness all of these interactions between Nathan and Elizabeth. No matter what they might say or the perception they might try to give off, the truth always comes out - and the truth is that they can't stay away from each other. Even when she tries to hide it, Elizabeth's heart is a compass, and we all know that compasses always point one way (and in her case, the N doesn't mean north).

To that point, I think that there has been a lot of double meaning to the things Elizabeth has said this season. The most recent example: in the last episode when Elizabeth says, "I tried to tell you at Allie's parent teacher conference. You are her rock. You are her foundation. If you let her down, her whole world crumbles." Also, to this point, in the scene where they're in Elizabeth's house, she says, "You will always be the measure of the quality she'll look for in a man as she chooses who to marry." I find the wording of both of these statements both interesting and telling. At this point, I think that Nathan isn't just Allie's rock - he's also Elizabeth's. She trusts him, and depends on him, and holds him in high regard. Nathan has unexpectedly filled a hole in Elizabeth's life: he is her main male support now. She has Bill and Lee, of course, but they don't fill the same spot. Bill is like a father figure, and Lee is her best friend's husband. But Nathan - Nathan is only Elizabeth's. It's a very specific spot he fills, and it's as the leading man in her life. They solve problems together, mentor and parent Allie, address the town's needs, etc. Again - they're a unit, and we're meant to see them as such. Elizabeth's behavior didn't change until after she almost lost Nathan (and then he told her he loved her); she doesn't seem shaken or upset until Nathan does something to make her feel that way. Nathan has become her rock, and she's laid a new foundation with him. Her emotional state is directly tied to Nathan (and Allie, as I think we've now seen). No matter how painful or difficult it is, Nathan and Elizabeth are already bonded (and deeply). A fact that will be highlighted in 8x09 when Elizabeth will choose Nathan's hands in that wedding game, despite the fact that she has never held his hands (but has held Lucas's several times now).

So. This turned into a freaking novel, and I could honestly keep going, but I won't. I will just say, once again, that I love Nathan with my whole heart. I may not agree with his every decision, but I don't expect to. I don't agree with a lot of Elizabeth's decisions, but I still love her too. The writers do have some work to do, however, because they took this further than I expected them to and now they need to work their way out of it. But, even in my most frustrated and tired moments - of which there have been several, and will probably be a few more - I have always known all roads lead to Nathan and Elizabeth. We'll be exhausted by the time we cross the finish line, but we'll get there. Don't lose hope.

#Anonymous #Nathan Grant #nathan x elizabeth #elizabeth x nathan #Jess' thoughts #gosh this one really got away from me #but I have so many thoughts

[princess-rosie]

Sanders sides dance school au because I can

(This dance school does most, if not all dance styles, and most of the students just do it as a hobby, it isn’t like a boarding ballet school)

Patton Hart

The cinnamon roll who the others must protect at all costs

Not the best dancer technically but he has good rhythm and amazing performance and personality- he still loves dance so much, and is improving every day

Has been here the longest, since he was a toddler

Is tiny and looks so short compared to everyone else on stage

Has made so many friendships and cares about his fellow dancers so much, loves dancing as a team

Loves wearing tutus

If the dance has a lift, he’s nearly always the one who’s lifted because he’s super light and trusts the others so much

A lot of the time on stage he can’t stop laughing because he’s just so happy to be performing

Loves every style of dance so much- don’t make him choose a favourite!

Is extremely unlucky when it comes to quick costume changes, almost always has a back-to-back in shows, Virgil and Remus don’t do as many dances so are always prepared backstage with his next costume

Brings a teddy bear to the backstage dressing room, no one judges him

Loves partnered dances, especially with Janus

Doesn’t score that high on exams, just sees them as a bit of fun and loves hanging out with everyone during the extra practice lessons

Always brings snacks for everyone while they wait between classes

Loves all the glitter and costumes, gets very excited when it comes to showtime

Always helps with the younger kids on stage. They often get bored while waiting for their dances so he plays with them while having a mental breakdown on the inside

Compiles all the show photos into a scrapbook and invites everyone over to his house to rewatch the show footage. Will remember the shows for the rest of his goddamn life.

Logan Berry

Braincell of the group

The only one with his shit together

Technically perfect dancer but struggles with performance/expression sometimes

Always brings extras of everything to shows because he knows people will forget/lose stuff

Knows all of his routines off the top of his head, sometimes even teaches everyone else

Memorises the running order of every show and makes spreadsheets to show who’s in which dance, people make fun of him for it slightly at first but they’re actually really helpful

If you have a question about literally anything- choreography, costumes, show timings, he will know

Does ridiculously fast tap solos and always gets the rhythm 100% perfect

Whenever the dancers have to come on stage in a line, there’s an agreement that Logan always leads because he’s often the only one who knows when to come on

Very determined to succeed in his exams, prepares extensively. the only time he will show emotion is if he thinks something has gone wrong. Usually gets near perfect marks in everything but performance

After each show he rewatches the footage and makes notes on everything he did wrong to improve for next time

Struggles with emotional stuff but he truly does see the dance school as a second home and dancing as far more than just a hobby

Roman Kingsley

Probably the best dancer in the school, wants to dance professionally someday

Exceedingly hard-working, technically flawless, amazing performance, always gives 100%

Has glitter and hairspray with him everywhere he goes

Loves every dance style but if he had to choose a favourite he’d probably go for ballet because he loves how graceful it is and the acting involved

Also does musical theatre and has an amazing singing voice

Extremely overdramatic, and just loves how extra the whole thing is, especially show costumes

Does so many classes he practically lives at the dance school

Can’t possibly be tired or worn out because he loves dance so much

Is in practically half the dances in every show but somehow manages it

Sings along to every song he dances to, even if it isn’t a musical theatre number

Got on his knees and begged the musical theatre teacher to do Hamilton. Did not succeed because swearing and there’s little kids in the dance school. However he did get away with Dear Evan Hansen- a contemporary routine to Waving Through a Window

Works very hard for his exams and it always pays off

Remus Kingsley

Chaos incarnated.

What’s a routine, he’s just here to vibe

Has come on stage late more times than you can count, sometimes because he’s lost part of his costume, other times because he genuinely forgot when his dance was

Technical disaster but is entertaining to watch

Is so chaotic in class, rarely listens, pisses the teachers off to no end- Roman often has to go over the routines with him afterwards because he doesn’t retain any of the steps

Has forgotten the dance while onstage multiple times but the audience rarely notice because he doesn’t fit with what everyone else is doing anyway

Does twin duets with Roman sometimes

Just dances for a bit of fun and to make friends- he knows he probably won’t get a career in dance but is so proud of his brother and supports him all the way

His favourite is Irish Riverdancing

“Ugghgh tech rehearsal is sooooooo boooriiiing”

Relies on Logan to know what the hell is going on

Roman also knows his routines better than he does. Sometimes, if Remus is in a dance but Roman isn’t, Roman will wear his costume and fill in for him

Can actually do the technique on the rare occasion that he tries

Usually freaks the hell out on exam days as he has done zero practice and gives every excuse not to do it. Somehow passes every time

Spends the entirety of tech rehearsal looking around for the filming cameras so he can stare straight into them and freak people out

Somehow manages to ladder every single goddamn pair of tights he wears

Janus Sanders

Charming with excellent performance skills

Says the costumes are too extravagant but secretly he loves all the glitter and fancy stuff

Loves ballroom dancing, him and Roman taught Patton to waltz and now he is a regular at the ballroom classes

Also loves the more jazzy dances and some of the tap ones

Doesn’t really pay much attention in class but somehow gets the routines spot on

Is usually the one to do everyone’s stage makeup

Also loves the musical theatre routines, him and Patton are usually the side characters while Roman is the lead

Knows how to razzle dazzle an audience, has good technique too

Also has potential for a career in dance but he isn’t sure

Encourages his fellow dancers to drink water and take breaks if needed

Loves any dance with a prop so he can be extra

Also loves partner dances, especially since Patton joined ballroom

Is pretty chill about exams, charms the examiner with his performance skills and usually gets great results

Orders pizza for everyone after the shows, runs to the theatre foyer in full costume and makeup to meet the delivery person

Sneaks a TV into the dressing room and somehow makes it so they can watch what’s going on onstage. No one knows how he got it there and honestly they’re afraid to ask.

Virgil Storm

Doesn’t know why he’s here half the time

Has a love-hate relationship with dance

Often has panic attacks backstage but his friends are always there to support him

Doesn’t stop going on about how he thinks the routines are “cringey” but secretly loves performing and acting

Loves more modern dance styles like commercial

Overthinks everything a lot

Doesn’t take many exams but when he does he gets very nervous

In class he tends to do the routines half-heartedly but will go full out with the performance onstage. Never rewatches the footage or looks at the photos but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t look back upon those show memories with extreme fondness

Extra info

Roman, Remus and Logan are 16

Janus, Virgil and Patton are 15

Heights from tallest to shortest-

Roman

Remus

Logan

Janus

Virgil

Patton (shortest by far)

Ranking of who does the most classes:

Roman

Patton and Janus

Logan

Remus

Virgil

At shows all 6 of them share a small dressing room and look after each other

Everyone goes shopping in town between matinee and evening performances in full makeup, they get the craziest looks but they don’t care

For partnered dances the usual pairings are Patton and Janus, Logan and Roman, Virgil and Remus (do whatever you will with that information)

I may develop this au in the future and possibly write something if my writers block will ever end

Also if any other fanders do dance, feel free to tag yourselves! (I’m Patton and Logan)

Edit: if you like the idea of this au and are interested in reading it as a (probably terrible) fic, you can do so here (tumblr) or here (ao3). If you do check it out let me know what you think!!

#moceit #intruxiety #logince #sanders sides #thomas sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #janus sanders #virgil sanders #ts patton #ts remus #ts virgil #ts logan #ts janus #ts roman #ts sides #sanders sides au #sanders sides dance school au #long post #dukexiety

[marksinn]

Passion Project: Inspiration

I don’t think I’m starting at the beginning with this post. Keep your eyes peeled for later posts that explain what I’m doing and why.

After a month of thinking about, sketching and painting designs, I have finally done something. Essentially, recently watching two films has pushed me into action, and a part of me is ashamed to admit it. There isn’t a word count or any typesetting to curtail my thoughts here, so strap in.

When I created this brief I figured I’d draw a million wee skateboards, colour a few of them in, then fling my favourites into Adobe illustrator and make them look good. From there I would take the 5 best up to the skatepark and ask some of the patrons there which designs stood out to them. Next, I would adapt the three front-runners and create sweet PhotoShop mockups that would show what my designs would look like as skateboards. If I had the time, inclination or money by the end of the project, I would have the design laid onto a real skateboard (I’ve been looking to buy a new one for some time) and then be proud of myself.

So I’ve drawn some wee skateboards. Then I started upscaling the designs onto the floorboards of my loft:

This was an exercise to let me see how small things need to be adapted to be blown up. Skateboards can have any level of detail that you like on them, I hadn’t considered this until I was trying to draw a semi-perfect triangle for the traffic cone, or until I was using chalk to recreate four cubes. It’s also been fun to work with different media on chipboard - I have learned that most kinds of pencil, paint, chalk and charcoal do not like being used on chipboard. Decorating paint, however, has no such issues. Thanks, Dulux!

And so, with a few of these under my belt, I decided to try some digital designs. So I jumped into Illustrator and totally ignored my sketchbook, coming up with three designs that were all inspired by the day I had just had. The top design, I’ll focus on last, for reasons that will become apparent (unless you follow me on Instagram, where you’ll already know that it’s an absolute hit, with over 19 likes already!). I was told by a guy at the skatepark that he likes decks with very basic designs, just a colour or two, nothing overly detailed. Another skater told me that he often likes the basic wood background with one small emblem or sticker just beside the wheels.

The duo-tone design felt nice, I’m usually one for over-complicating things. I definitely have an attitude of “If there’s more in it, there’s a greater chance someone will find something they like”. The first colour choice put my girlfriend in the mind of a hand-bag she had seen photographed in the arms of Carrie Fisher - it was designed to look like a Prozac pill. So I changed the colours up, and added the separating black lines and textures to give it some subtle character. I then went full meta with the Minimal design. And, if I’m being honest, I’m incredibly happy with how it looks like a wee character. Expect to see that making a comeback in the very near future. But the top design is what really got me going. 

I’ve recently been watching...

...Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and have been loving Miles Morales’ multiple hobbies of graffiti, mixing beats and saving his neighbourhood from a variety of dangers. 

I then went to the cinema to see In The Heights, telling the tale of the Latin community during a blackout in North Manhattan. I found myself wrapped up in the romance, tribulations and music of the cast, and was felt oddly proud of Lin Manuel Miranda - who wrote this as a stage-musical while he was in college, had a modicum of success with it, then went on to create Hamilton, one of the most important musicals of our time. With the success of that particular show taking the entire world by storm, he was given the opportunity to make his old, relatively only semi-popular play into a blockbuster film. You can’t help but be inspired by someone like that.

I often find towards the end of a film I’m inspired by the characters’ journeys: be that from zero to hero, from lonely to loved or from rags to riches. Then I walk out and carry on with my normal life doing normal things. And as the hero of the story’s dreams all came true in the closing minutes (sorry for the spoiler, but it’s a musical, they rarely end in despair), a thought floated across my mind:

I’m utterly sick of being inspired

Now, to my credit, I did figure out in the car home that ‘tired’ would be a far more fitting and rhythmic word to use in this sentence, but this was a mentality that I found resonated really strongly with me. I’m very good at being inspired, I think most people are. We hear stories of people starting their own business, achieving some sporting brilliance or overcoming a personal hurdle and we say “Wow, isn’t that inspiring?” or

“It really inspires you to go out and make a difference!” or

“They are such an inspirational speaker!”

Then we go off about our day, not acting on the inspiration, and, for the most part, remaining uninspired. So I decided to act. 

I did some very quick research (/acquiring of images of graffiti) in order to get the right shapes and textures to create a spray paint effect in Illustrator. I did some very quick research (/confirming the colours) of South American flags, taking the blue and red used in flags of the home nations of Miles Morales from Spider-Man and Usnavi from In The Heights. And I created the top design.

YES! I had been inspired and I had drawn a wee picture to show that - I had acted on my inspirations!

Then I looked to my left and spotted three, blank skate decks that I had bought on a whim from Re:Ply (a wonderful wee company who do a great deal of charity work supplying boards to people who need them, selling boards to people who can afford them, and for a very reasonable fee, providing unusable decks to people who want to use them for artistic purposes). I realised I hadn’t acted on my inspiration, I had just drawn a few pictures of skateboards with the eventual aim of PhotoShopping them onto other pictures of skateboards.

So I took myself...

... into the city centre with a shoddily prepared speech: “I’m looking for some cheap, small cans of spray paint. I’ve no idea what I’m doing, or if I’ll be good at it, so don’t want to invest too much into this.” Hiding behind this self-deprecating shield I barged into multiple art-, pound- and model-shops and pleaded with the staff to help a young idiot out. Amazingly, a very kind shop assistant pointed me in the direction of Fat Buddha, a clothes shop I’d always ignored as it seemed a bit to “...” for me. I don’t know what it seemed, but I knew it wasn't my kind of shop. Happy to prove me wrong, the guys in there were super helpful and they helped me buy my first cans of spray paint. 

Now I’d spent money...

... and as a skinflint, that meant I had to get use out of my purchases. I had tricked myself into being inspired. Inspiration led me to the drawing, inspiration had led me to buy decks and the paint, now inspiration had to make me spray paint.

I’ll stop yammering on now. Essentially, I had planned on creating some analogue designs then digitising them (I’m guessing I should do a post on my brief, yeah? Might just upload the PDF to save me talking more), but then I found that I was doing the complete opposite. Genuinely accidentally. I had played with a few typefaces from various websites to get fonts that represented the ideas I wanted. The top one was semi-stolen (I can’t use the word ‘inspired’ any more in this post) from the end credits of In The Heights. The larger font is something of a nod to inspirational quotes you see on Facebook or on glittery frames in B&M.

I printed those out and cut them into stencils (very impressed that my digital boards have been drawn to a workable scale, thanks Maths). And after putting down a tack-layer (GRAFFITI JARGON (I think)) I sprayed the whole lot in blue.

Next, I tried to get a little fancy. Using cardboard blockers to create straight lines I added stars* (borrowed from the Puerto Rican flag) and made the bottom stripes vaguely reminiscent of America’s Old Glory.

I peeled the lettering off, and I’d done it. I may have to explain the overtly-negative inspirational quote to people, but to me it’s a clear sign that there’s no point in just being inspired, and that’s all I wanted.

A weight I didn’t know I was carrying was lifted from my shoulders. The plan was to possibly end up with a self-designed skateboard. And now I have one.

*Yes, I know they’re crosses.

#pp_hncgd1 #allhandsondecks #skateboard

[faedawayyy]

THIS IS POST 2: CHARACTERS WHO HAVE SOME STORYLINES AND PLOTS ALREADY BUT AREN’T NEARLY AS ESTABLISHED AS THEY COULD BE. THEIR PLOTS WILL INCLUDE MORE LOOKING FOR LOVE AND MESSINESS BECAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE AS MANY COMMITMENTS AS THE ONES IN POST ONE.

MILES

the only carmichael boy who is officially single from his household. i feel like this has definitely caused his mum to push her attention on to him, particularly because he lives at home. she definitely wants him to settle down with somebody and at the moment, he fake dates arabella to keep her happy but there’s more i can get out of this. SOOOOOOO...

- HIS PLANNED GIRLFRIEND/WIFE: this was charlie at one point but she has more with leo now so it doesn’t really make sense. somebody from a wealthy family who his parents wanted him to end up with. maybe they’re constantly pushing them together but the two of them HATE each other with a passion and do everything they can to mess up their parents plans. - FWB: he’s been in the shadows for quite a while which isn’t a surprise given how much leo, mason and brody have going on. but, now he’s getting a bit older, i think he’d be more confident in himself and i can totally see him hooking up after events and stuff and having a few fwb. it’d be cool if these had different dynamics too like unrequited crushes/people using him for fame etc.  - MALE FRIENDSHIPS: he’d definitely hang out with people in his family’s circle but also people who are different and come from different walks of life. as a general rule, he’s chill and not big on aesthetics and appearances if that helps anybody! 

NATE

HE’S LIKE MY 2021 DALLAS AND THAT’S THE DIRECTION I WANT TO MOVE HIM IN. he’s a rising star in terms of his music and also has a minor acting and modelling career. he definitely gets the right amount of hype too so i think he’s the best choice out of my new guys to really give like the whole ‘rising star’ thing. i have QUITE A FEW ideas for him bc i’m excited! 

SIDE NOTE: him and imogen aren’t officially end game. like they might be? but what i’m trying to say is me and nadine haven’t plotted anything like that. their official plot is that they were dating behind charlie’s back when imogen was with charlie. now imogen isn’t w.charlie, they flirt and hook up but are p.toxic and argumentative. 

- FWB/RUMOURED PARTNERS:  this one goes w/o saying. i think i’m going to cap the plot at about 3 (not including imogen). maybe 3 different girls he’s linked with and has his own thing with. bonus points if one of these is a PR arrangement and it doesn’t go any deeper than public appearances.  - SECRET SHARERS: so with his career getting bigger, i think he’d be more serious about keeping his secret which is basically back in high school, him and a few of his friends are responsible for leaving another guy in a coma (he’s still in it now) after they spiked his drink to stop him from exposing them for cheating their way into st judes. i need maybe 3 or 4 people who all had a hand in this but we can work it out together. 

- FRIENDS/PEOPLE HELPING WITH HIS CAREER ETC.

EZRA

i’m kinda stuck with ezra. i have ideas but i dont know what the best way to execute them will be? so, he obviously has his son - nicolas - who is being raised by his mother atm. he’s natalie’s son; ezra and natalie were high school sweethearts but have gone their separate ways, they coparent as much as they can. this year ezra has got closer to madison and then felicity but in both relationships found they weren’t really satisfied with just him and flirted with others...so he’s kind of in a weird place. - PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP: maybe someone who knows all about his son and has helped ezra raise him/keeping it all a secret. it would be strictly platonic. i think she/he would be ezra’s best friend and they wouldn’t have any grey area. there’s no romantic feelings but the bond is strong. 

- EX: in between natalie and then felicity/madison. maybe they broke up because he wanted to focus on nicolas and didn’t have enough time for their relationship but there’s still feelings there. i just want somebody who genuinely loved/wanted him at one point and doesn’t always find someone better :’) we could develop how things unravel in 2021.

LUKE

luke’s father is the head of film at st judes and he has a lot of pressure on his shoulders to do well. at the moment, he’s in his good books because he’s a key part of the harry potter movies which is really pushing him and boosting his profile. he’s very focused on his work but also wants to branch out and make more connections. he’s currently interested in athena but i want to dig into his past a little more.  - EX FRIENDS/RIVALS: a friend that luke grew up with and they both went into acting, that’s when the friendship became toxic. they were always trying to outdo one another and it’s continued on to this day; they both have good careers but aren’t satisfied unless they’re doing slightly better than the other one; this can be m or f. 

- HIGH SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND: he went to gallagher high school. i think it’d be interesting if they were dating and looked as if they’d be typical high school sweethearts. maybe the plan was to live in one of his parents place, get regular jobs and settle down but then he chose his career/st judes and broke it off because it got too serious too soon. bonus points if she still hasn’t fully let him go bc she truly did love him. 

- COMPLICATED EX: an ex he dated at the beginning of st judes and it just got toxic very fast. maybe the reverse of his high school girlfriend - she fell out of love with him/was stringing him along and now there’s a lot of tension.

- WILDER FRIENDS: he’s very clean cut at the moment and has pressure to be a good example for others bc his dad is so linked to the academy, but maybe friends who tempt him to go out more and enjoy this time/make memories/do crazier things.

TAEWAN

ok ok i’m getting bored but for taewan, it’s very similar to luke. BTS are really going to be pushed to be the best next year and this is going to create both new and break old connections for him sooooooo take a look.

RIVALS/INDUSTRY ENEMIES - artists who work just as hard, if not harder, than BTS but don’t see half of the benefits with advertisement and getting prime performance spots at award shows. i think there’ll even be rumours than BTS buy some of their awards. he’d 100% have enemies by this time next year and would lowkey be sad about it bc he knows BTS are in the wrong, but also his career means too much to just admit it. P.R. GIRLFRIEND - a girl who’s a rising star too and he’s placed in a fake relationship to boost both of their profiles. it’d need to be a relationship where they clash and do not get along with one another bc i think that’d be fun. maybe they grow to like each other or be at least friends in the end but !!! the more tension the better tbh.

LOVE INTEREST/BEST FRIEND - i feel like he’d have one person who is currently his best friend and they’ve always kind of had feelings for each other...but now BTS are blowing up and management are getting involved with who he’s seen with and who he can be with, their friendship is breaking down massively and they’re drifting.

BRIELLE

brielle has just moved in with imogen and park and she’s been thrown into like, the world of old money and the richest family’s in violet springs. she’s experiencing so much new for the first time. imogen and her friends have kind of taken brielle under their wing & her life has kinda separated into two.

PEOPLE WHO KNOW HER FROM THE STRIP CLUB - i’ve literally been begging for this connection since i had her. her main source of income is stripping and dancing at a sketchy club in london. i’d love to have someone who sees her regularly and even pays for her to perform for their. i feel like it could either be they become infatuated with her through it OR they lowkey do it as blackmail to make the point that they’ve always got something over her.  OLD FRIENDSHIPS - people who have NO connection to the richer families and are friends with brielle from before. they know about her getting closer to imogen and the hamiltons and brielle is almost like their eyes on the inside, and they meet up and just gossip about everything that brielle has experienced. maybe one of these friends get a little jealous at some point and accuses her of forgetting who her real friends are/changing? NEW FRIENDSHIPS - people who DO have connections to that whole circle. maybe they get closer to brielle through events that she comes to with imogen OR they kind of mock her and treat her like an outcast. i definitely think she’d encounter some mean girls.  ALSO new friends with benefits because why not! there’re so many possibilities. i’m just getting tired of typing LOL

YULIA

yulia currently lives in the home of the family she nannies for. this job funds her scholarship at st judes, but she tells everybody that those people are her parents and sisters. she gives off the impression that she was born rich and doesn’t mention her real family to anybody because she’s ashamed. she has a lot of self hatred when it comes to where she came from and is v.much continuing with ‘fake it ‘til you make it’.

GUYS SHE USES FOR PUBLICITY/MONEY - i think yulia wants nothing more than to be legitimately rich, so she’d be very picky about the guys she flirts with and gives her time too. she’s probably more determined to get a rich and famous boyfriend than she is about having a successful film career. her priorities are all over the place. 

SOMEONE WHO HELPS HER CONTINUE HER LIE - maybe one or two friends who know she’s a nanny and they aren’t her family - but she doesn’t know that they know that. however, because they like her and/or feel bad for her, they play along and help her continue her lie.

ELOISE

eloise is the oldest calloway sister and even though she’s technically a “half” sister, she’s been raised with the other girls and is very close to them - especially zara. she’s the sensible one and often has the most level-head. she doesn’t take much shit but is also a hopeless romantic and loves to be in love. she really doesn’t have much at all right now so i could do with lots of different plots:

childhood friends, people who were like sisters to her when her real sisters weren’t. 

an ex boyfriend and her first boyfriend. i feel like the break up would’ve hurt because she’s v attached to people 

a close friend who has a ridiculously big crush on her atm; boy or girl idm! i feel like eloise wouldn’t know at first and maybe freak out when she finds out and we can see what happens from there 

maybe friends/guys who have used her to get to her sister(s)

MARGO

MY BABYYYYYYY. margo is legit my favourite and thats saying a lot bc you guys know how much i love issy and hensley. she’s basically signed herself out of rehab and takes advantage of the fact that dallas is working SO hard to get everything done. she has a huge tendency to buy and drink her feelings away SOOOO.....

ENABLERS - i kind of want her to get in with ‘the wrong crowd’, and by that i mean like...people who don’t rly care that she’s an addict and want to have fun with her. i have a really specific connection in mind where they’re fwb but it’s no good for her; BUT she’s kind of easy and happy to have sex hjkl; so they just keep her on standby.

OTHER FWB - i really want her to just go through a massive sleeping around stage. i haven’t really found someone she ‘clicks’ with. she relies LOTS AND LOTS on park and even though they’re not romantic, he’s her safe space. but i think there’d be a lot of other people in her life who she gets different things from. some ideas could be excitement, or people who baby her, or someone who maybe cares a lot about her & its their only way of being in contact.

EX FRIENDS - friends who gave up on her after she went to rehab and became a mess. she’d hate them bc as tough as she acts, she HATES HATE HES being abandoned. that’s why she clings to park and disney sm, bc she knows that they’ve been her friends since the beginning. 

#save #PLOTS

[youreverycolor]

An Unlikely Love: Perfect Again (Rafael Barba x Anna Stein)

AN: Prompt #156 from 200 Prompts from @drink-it-write-it (“He stares at you every time you look away.”)

Also, I’ve decided to start adding songs to go with these stories. For the previous ones, here is a list (these will all take you to Youtube).

Post-Script: “My Shot” from Hamilton Admissions: “Tiny Voice” by Lexi Walker Unspoken: “Tale as Old as Time” from Beauty and the Beast Redemption: “Skin” by Rihanna

Tagging: @thatesqcrush @madpanda75 @misssirenlove @danahart1 @nikkijmorgan @ele-esposito @dianilaws @sunnyfortomorrow @mommakat32 @lucifersadvisor @gibbs274 @oliviamariathegirl @evee87 @tropes-and-tales @garturbo @delia26 @neely1177 @jennisdirtyimagines @lostintech0011001 @letty-o @lucifersadvisor @sunnyfortomorrow @literallyprentissstwin

Song: “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin

~*~*~*~

“So, I’m guessing I won’t be seeing you for a few weeks?” Rafael stirred the salsa that was simmering on the stove as Anna sat on the other side of the breakfast bar, hunched over a book.

She barely looked up. “Maybe.”

He smiled. “Well, your exams are coming up, aren’t they?”

“Mmhmm,” she mumbled absently.

“I guess I’m going to have to hang out with Carisi to fill the time.”

She turned the page. “Fine by me.”

He was entertained by this little game. “And then I’ll do a striptease across the squad room.”

“That’s good.” Then, as if she had snapped out of a trance, her head jerked up. “Wait—what did you say?”

He laughed and checked the beans, which were almost ready to mash. “I see how it is. You ignore me until you hear the word striptease. Then I have your attention.”

She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry. I was just—”

He smirked. “More interested in the Rule Against Perpetuities than in me?” He walked around the counter to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “It’s okay. It has that mysterious and sexy vibe.” He pulled her sweatshirt—well, actually, his sweatshirt—aside and nuzzled against her neck.

“You keep doing that and it won’t get any less mysterious to me,” she whimpered, reaching her hand up and around her head to caress the back of his head. “Or I’ll just get turned on in the middle of the exam.”

“Nobody understands that rule.” He gave her a quick nip on her earlobe but released her from his grip and went back to the food. “In some states, you can’t actually be sued for using it wrong.”

“I wish that applied to civil procedure, too. I will never understand Pennoyer.”

He cracked two eggs into a skillet that had once held tortillas. “More stuff you will never use. I do, however, expect you to get a perfect score on your criminal law exam.”

“What happens if I disappoint you?”

He glanced up at her and saw that her face had fallen just slightly. Despite her notoriously great poker face, the longer he was with her, the more he was able to read her micro expressions. “Mi corazón, I was kidding.” He tilted the pan to redistribute the oil and then went back to the beans. “You could never disappoint me.”

She sighed. “I’m worried I’m going to disappoint myself.”

“How?”

“I worked really hard to get into school. And I’ve worked really hard all semester to keep up with the work. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“Si, pero you’ve come this far. Exams are just regurgitation of what you’ve been discussing all semester,” he replied. “I promise, the hard stuff is what you do in class. And if it makes you feel any better, how you do in law school—or even on the bar exam—doesn’t tell you how you’ll be as a lawyer.”

She brightened a bit. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, look at Carisi—”

“Raf, you know that’s not nice!” she scolded. “Sonny is a perfectly fine attorney.”

He finished plating their dinner. “Sorry. I’m just saying that some of the best attorneys I know were only average in school. It doesn’t mean anything.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And how did you do in law school?” It was a rhetorical question. She knew perfectly well how he’d done.

He pushed a plate across the counter from her and sat down next to her with his own. This was where they usually ate together; the dining room table had other uses. “Don’t compare yourself with me, Anna. Don’t compare yourself with anyone. You deserve to be a lawyer more than anyone else I know. And I will be as proud of you the day you take that oath as I am right now just for working as hard as you are.”

“Are you sure you won’t be disappointed if I—”

He set his fork down and took her hands in his. “The only way you could disappoint me, Anna, is if you’re so worried about the lawyer you’ll be that you forget about being the woman you are.”

She dipped her head for a second and then kissed him. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.” She took a bite of the huevos rancheros he had prepared and sighed. “Jesus, this is delicious. Is there anything you’re not good at?”

He thought for a second. “Stripping?”

When she threw her head back and laughed, he knew he had broken through the wall of negligence and consideration, theories and rules. After her shower, he caught her singing along to Disney soundtracks in the bedroom as she blow-dried her hair. When she saw him watching her, she motioned for him to join her one-woman concert, creating the perfect harmony. And for the rest of the night, Anna was his Anna again, and there was no way he could ever be disappointed with that.

***

The day grades were posted on the school’s intranet, Anna had to wait all day to check them because she wanted Rafael to be with her when she did. And of course, that had to be the day he got home late; a trial had run over and then he had to meet with the squad regarding a new case that had just come in. By the time he arrived at her apartment, she was clawing the walls. When they finally sat down to look, she couldn’t do it—she made him open up the website and look for her while she paced between the couch and her kitchen counter.

“Well?” she asked, impatiently.

His face betrayed nothing. He took a deep breath and looked up at her from behind her laptop screen. “Do you want the bad news or the good news first?”

Her heart fell into her stomach. This was torture. She prepared to hear that she had done poorly enough that she wouldn’t be able to return for the next semester. “Just get the bad news over with, I guess.”

“Well,” he continued, “you’re probably going to want to get very drunk.”

“Oh God,” she said, walking to her liquor cabinet. “Do I want wine or scotch?”

His face started to twitch. “Don’t you want the good news?”

She turned back. “Oh. Well, I guess that couldn’t hurt. What’s the good news?”

He stood up. “The good news is that you’re going to want to get very drunk celebrating with a bunch of people, because, mi corazón, your GPA is a 3.0.”

Her ears filled with the sound of her own heartbeat. She wasn’t even sure she had heard him correctly. “I’m sorry, did you say—”

A wide grin stretched across his face. “I did!” He threw his arms around her waist and spun her around. “You did so well, Anna! I’m so proud of you.”

But her face was not what he had expected it would be. She didn’t look as happy as he thought she would have. Although she was smiling, it wasn’t the genuine smile he loved so much. She pulled herself out of his arms and sat on the couch to examine the grades more closely. She had an A in criminal law—no surprise there—and another in torts. But civil procedure and property had been her downfall: she’d only managed to pull C’s in those two classes. Her eyebrows pinched together. What happened? she wondered.

Rafael, however, seemed thrilled with her work, and she didn’t want to dampen his mood with her own. She would have plenty of time to analyze what had gone wrong when she was alone. So she put on the happiest face she could muster and stood up to face him again.

“Thank you, honey,” she said. “I appreciate how supportive you’ve been all this time.”

He smiled at her and tilted his head. “Are you all right? You seem a bit—”

“Oh, no, I’m fine!” she said, a little too emphatically. “It’s just kind of one of those adrenaline things. You know, anticipation and then…”

He squinted at her just a bit and took her hands. “I love you. We should go celebrate.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Raf, I’m not—I mean, it’s late, and I’m kind of tired. Stressful day, you know? Can we just—”

“Chinese?” he offered. “You may even be able to convince me to watch the new version of Beauty and the Beast.”

“Sure.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m fine, Raf. Really.” Then she went into the kitchen to find the menu for their favorite Chinese place down the street, leaving a trail of lies in her wake.

***

A week later, just before Christmas, Rafael had a surprise for Anna. Between his work schedule and a two-day migraine she’d had, they hadn’t had time to celebrate properly. Getting the squad together was like herding cats, but he had managed to do it. He organized a small get-together at Forlini’s with them, plus a couple of Anna’s friends, to celebrate the successful end of Anna’s first semester of law school. The night of the party, he arranged for the two of them to Uber from his apartment to the restaurant, as if it were just another date night. Anna didn’t ask too many questions, although she was surprised that he suggested Forlini’s, as it was where he usually went to drown his sorrows after a tough loss.

“I’d like to start associating this place with good things,” he said to her as they exited the car.

“Gotcha. I’m kind of excited to go here, to be honest. Maybe I’ll start feeling like I might actually become a lawyer someday.”

Over the last week, Anna had made a few offhanded comments like that, and it concerned him slightly. Ever since grades came out, she hadn’t quite been herself. He assumed it was the migraine and also the post-exam comedown, but something seemed a bit off. He tried to put the thought out of his mind; he wanted tonight to be all about her and her success. After all, they had celebrated enough of his victories.

“Surprise!”

To Anna’s utter and complete shock, she entered the main dining room to find Olivia, Fin, Sonny, Amanda, and three of her friends gathered around a long table, cheering and shouting congratulations. She had no idea how to react at first—she hadn’t been expecting this at all.

“Holy sh—what are you all—”

Sonny came around the table to high-five her. “Rafael thought it would be a good idea to celebrate. He said you did really great your first semester!”

“Yeah, a 3.0? That’s better than I ever did, even in high school,” Fin added.

“No shock there,” Amanda said, elbowing him playfully. He gave her a faux glare.

As everyone else around the table offered their congratulations, Anna was aghast. She had no idea how to react to this. She knew that everyone gathered around this table was there to celebrate her, and that they all genuinely believed she’d done well. But all week, she had been turning the semester over in her head, trying to figure out how she had done so poorly in civ pro and property, and how she could have done better in her other classes. As soon as she got back to school, she planned to ask for copies of her essays, after which she would spend a great deal of time reviewing them and making notes on what she had missed. For now, though, she didn’t want to disappoint all these people who had made time out of their busy schedules to come together on her account. So she plastered a smile on her face and thanked each of them individually before they all sat down to dinner.

All through dinner, Rafael barely stopped touching her. He would squeeze her leg under the table or hold her hand while they waited for their next course. They made small talk with her friends, who would later tell Anna that they couldn’t believe he was as old as he was because he was so handsome, and, of course, they asked all about how she was liking law school. She gave the appropriate answers, told them what she knew they wanted to hear. After a while, though, she knew her façade was starting to falter, so she excused herself to the bar to get another glass of wine.

“I’ll go with you,” Amanda said, signaling to her empty glass. “If I’m paying a sitter, I might as well live it up.” While they were waiting for their drinks, Amanda glanced backward at the table. Rafael was sitting at the end of the table facing the bar, and although there was conversation going on all around him, his eyes were focused on Anna. He was clearly trying to be subtle; his eyes occasionally darted back to someone else’s face, and he would take a sip of his scotch. But inevitably, his bright green gaze would land back on his girlfriend, like he was worried that if he looked away too long, she would disappear. “He stares at you every time you look away,” she finally said.

“Excuse me?”

Amanda smiled and leaned toward Anna, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “If you looked over your shoulder right now, you’d see it. He’s so proud of you. And Barba is never proud of anyone. He barely said congratulations to Carisi when he passed the damn bar exam.”

“I don’t know why,” Anna said sadly.

“Because he thinks Carisi is enough of a puppy dog and doesn’t need any more encouragement.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I don’t know why he’s proud of me. I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped.”

Amanda played with her empty glass. “A 3.0 is pretty damn good if you ask me.”

“I’m dating Rafael Magna-Cum-Laude-At-Harvard-Law-School Barba,” Anna said. “The guy who started as a poor kid in the Bronx and moved up to be—well, look at him.” She gestured to Rafael, in his three-piece suit, now debating the latest gun control measure in the state legislature with Sonny. “How the hell do I live up to that?”

Amanda set her glass on the counter. “Does he make you feel like you have to live up to something? Because that’s not what that stare says to me.”

Anna didn’t say anything for a long while, and then she looked at the usually cynical blonde. “So, detective, what does that stare say to you, then?”

“Look, I’m no romantic,” Amanda began, “but I’ve known Barba for years now, and I can tell you right now that I have never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you—especially when he knows you’re not looking. It’s like a compulsion or something.”

Anna felt a flush wash over her skin. Suddenly, she was very aware of the pair of eyes on her from across the room. It wasn’t creepy; on the contrary, he looked at her the way she always hoped someone would look at her. But she still couldn’t shake the idea that she hadn’t earned that look, that she had somehow failed to live up to what Rafael Barba deserved in a partner.

Just then, their drinks appeared on the bar. “Thank you, Amanda,” she said, bracing herself for round two.

“No problem. And for what it’s worth? Carisi only got a 2.9 his first semester.”

***

“Did you have fun?” Rafael asked as he shut her apartment door behind them.

Anna stepped out of her painfully high heels, suddenly becoming shorter than him again. “Yeah. I’m just surprised you were able to get everyone together!”

He loosened his tie. “It wasn’t easy, believe me. Not that they didn’t want to come, but, you know, kids, grandkids, that kind of thing. You should be very aware of how much they care about you.”

“You mean how much they care about you,” she muttered, heading to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“What does that mean?”

“What are you, a bat?”

“Don’t deflect. What’s wrong, Anna? Something’s been off all week, and I can’t figure out what. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she said, a hint of sadness in her voice. “That’s the problem.”

“Well, now I’m very confused.” He took her by the hand and led her into the living room, pulling her onto the couch with him. “Sit. Breathe. Explain.”

She sighed deeply. “It’s not easy being your girlfriend sometimes, you know.”

He laughed a little. “I could have told you that months ago. In fact, I think I did tell you that.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not—it’s not that you’re doing something wrong. You’re easy to be with, actually—a lot easier than you think you are.”

“That’s an argument for another day. What’s not easy, then?”

She tried to look away, but he turned her head back gently. “Do you remember when we were just barely together, and you asked me why I chose you?”

He nodded. “That was the first time you said you loved me. How could I forget that?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Well, as easy as it seemed for me to say that, it wasn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she replied, “I had the same question for you.”

It was his turn to be aghast. His eyes widened and he took her hands in his. “Why in the world would you have to question that? If anyone should be insecure, it’s me. But I know you love me. So why do you doubt that I love you?”

“It’s not that I doubt that you love me, Raf. It’s that I don’t know why. And last week just made it worse.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “What happened last week that would make you wonder—” He stopped. “Oh, Amor, you don’t mean your grades.”

A tear fell from her eye and she tore one of her hands away from his to wipe it away. “I told you I was afraid of disappointing you, and myself. My grades were—well—not what I expected.”

“Mi amor, it is so common for your first semester of law school to be imperfect. And you did remarkably well, especially considering you also have a job.”

“You did remarkably well. I’m just…average. And when I look at you, when I see you in court, when you sit there and debate gun control with Sonny, it becomes all the more apparent to me that you could do so much better, and—”

“Anna, listen to me. There is nothing better than you. I could look for it and I wouldn’t find it because it doesn’t exist. You could work at McDonald’s for all I care. You are not your career. I know I make it seem like that’s a lifestyle, but if you haven’t noticed, I’m not the most well-adjusted person.” He gave her a small smile, trying to make her laugh, but she didn’t.

“I just wanted to make you proud of me.”

“I’m proud of you every day. Why do you think I can’t stop touching you when we’re out? It’s not that I’m trying to tell the world that you’re mine.”

She wiped another tear away. “No? Then what is it?”

“It’s that I want everyone to know that I’m yours,” he said. “I want people to know that you chose me. I told you, Anna. The only way you could ever disappoint me is by forgetting who you are in favor of what you’re becoming. And you shouldn’t be disappointed in yourself, either. What you’ve accomplished in the last two years is nothing short of amazing, and if I have to tell you that every day, I will, until you believe me.”

She looked up into his now-watery eyes, and in that moment, she was so grateful for having a partner who was just that—her partner. He never made her feel silly for having feelings or that she had to be something more than what she was. And then she thought about what Amanda had said about him staring at her, and suddenly she realized that her insecurity wasn’t coming from him. It was only coming from inside her head.

To his great relief, she finally broke into a smile. “You know what really would make me feel better?”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Seeing if you really are good at stripping.”

#rafael barba #rafael barba fanfiction #rafael barba fan fiction #rafael barba fanfic #rafael barba fan fic #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba x oc #ada rafael barba #law and order svu #law and order special victims unit #l&o:svu #raul esparza #svu #an unlikely love #my fic #svu fanfiction

[maddiesup]

About me tag~🌺

I got tagged by @sllkicker thank you Sam🥺💗

1. Its your birthday! What did you ask for and did you receive it?

I haven't asked for birthday presents for a while now but usually I just talk to my parents about something and they have the power to remember it for a long time and then make me stunned on my b-day. Last year I got a ticket to see Hamilton in London as my birthday present and I told them I'd love to see it maybe once? It was an unforgettable experience as well✨

2. What was the last song or album you listened to?

For the album I'm pretty sure I listened to All About Luv by Monsta X (since I love love love it). And yesterday I was also listening to some kpop groups that I haven't heard much from before to see if I like any. And so far I'm really in love with Zombie by Day6 and Summer Breeze by SF9.

3. What is your go to snack when you’re hungry or bored?

Anything that contains chocolate~ which is a bad idea most of the time bc I can get a really bad stomachache if I eat too much. Never stopped me tho. And if I'm not in the mood for chocolate, maybe some dried fruit or cornflakes, or chips.

4. What is your morning routine?

Eeee *laughs nervously* I wake up late, spend another hour in bed, get up when my mom tells me the food is ready, eat and spend some time with her probably browsing through social media as well or playing Pokemon go, then we go on a walk around the lake nearby, and after we return, I go to my room to watch something/play the sims/listen to music/etc. I usually also write a small part of the story I've started recently, so I'm trying to make a habit out of writing.

5. What mythical/cryptid creature would you be?

Ohhhh there's so many good ones. This will probably sound lame but I think I'd go with a mermaid or a hippocamp because I'd love to be able to explore the ocean as one of its habitants for the rest of my life. I have always felt a connection with water and there's that something that always scared me and intrigued me about it.

6. How do you interact with someone that you don’t like?

Avoid them at all costs. Don't interact or if you have to, do the very least and go. I mean, obviously it depends on what they did for me to dislike them and if I absolutely have to interact with them, I'd probably try to be nice. But generally: a v o i d.

7. How do you define a toxic person?

Someone who slowly makes you feel worse and worse about yourself and better about them. I'm an introvert so any human interaction is exhausting for me, but my friends give me so much good energy and I feel tired but satisfied. Meanwhile with a toxic person you'd feel absolutely exhausted and with no energy to go on. You'd find excuses for that, you'd try to defend the very person who hurts you, hurting yourself more in the process. If you do something wrong, you're the only one to blame, but if they hurt you, it's nothing. It's not a relationship of equals, a toxic person thrives on the other one being miserable.

8. Have you ever been to a concert or fanmeet type event?

I have! But not to a lot and not any that I would really like to go. I've never taken part in a concert/fanmeet that I'd wanted to go for a very long time, I think. But I have a few ideas about what groups I'd love to see live (Seventeen, Blackpink, 5sos, twenty one pilots)

9. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?

Do I? My friend is interested in astrology so he often tells me about it and I find it genuinely interesting. I'm sceptical a bit and probably not as into it as he is, but I can think of it as something fun to know about. There are probably some parts of it that I genuinely believe in tho.

10. If you only had one sense (hearing, sight, touch… ect.) which one would you want?

Oh noooooo, this one's hard. There are too many beautiful and amazing things to experience with all of the senses so I'm not sure which one to go with. Probably,,, hearing tho. I could do without smell, sight and taste would be hard to lose, but I'd manage and touch, well... If I could still hug people even without feeling it, I'm good. So hearing! Probably, bc I love music and listening to some of the tunes feels like entering different worlds to me. I could still listen to podcasts and audiobooks, too, so I'm all good.

11. Who is your favorite celebrity or idol?

Ummm, do I have one? I have a lot of people that inspire me, but I wouldn't call them celebrities for the most part. I'm just gonna say Saint Suppapong, since I love the boy and he's an idol, and I'm proud of him💖

12. If you could talk to Your favorite celebrity for a limited time, what would you tell them?

Oh lord. I'd have a heart attack, first. Then, I'd just have sort of a friendly chat. Tell him, I support him, I am proud of him and I look forward too see more of his work in the future. Something uplifting to make sure he feels appreciated. Maybe I'd present something handmade for him so he could remember that, too.

13. I’m taking you out on a date and its your choice. Where are we going, and what are we doing?

A picnic! I'm dying to go on a picnic for a date. But generally anywhere is fine, as long as we can spend time together. A zoo, an oceanarium, a planetarium, a museum, a cinema, a cafe, a dinner, a walk in a park, doesn't matter. I just want to spend time with you and probably have you close💗

14. Do you like sweet or savory foods?

Both ofc but I lean more towards sweet~

15. Do you have any band merch or anything from your favorite artist? If so what?

I don't have a lot of merch in general so no, I don't think so. But I'd love to buy some of my favourite kpop albums, the only thing is which ones 😭😭

Thanks again for the tag! 💗 I don't feel like tagging anyone today so feel free to do it if you want to! Stay hydrated guys✨💖💖

#tagged! #thanks again for tagging 💕💕 #tag game #stay hydrated y'all #take care of yourselves #💖💖💖

[saintambrose]

haha it’s US politics hours

listen, this tumblr has always been a fandom place since its inception and I’ve not really designated it as a space for political discussion because 1) I have several other avenues for that arena of discussion and 2) escapism was the theme here; but I’ve finally watched The Comey Rule and I have some THOUGHTS 

and I’m not really sure how active anyone is here anymore anyway, because I’ve not really been around as regularly as I was before the nsfw-ban shitstorm, so. Diving right in.

Probably my favorite thing was how it painted the American right wing as this faux-centrist bastion of impartiality at first, the whole circus with HiLLaRy’S EmAiLs being about how they legitimately believed they could play the angle that the emails were a threat to national security all while they knew damn well it was a huge big nothingburger (with a side of hatred of women) while doing that thing that right wingers have done since the Reagan administration where they malign anything left of fascism as communism (including basic human rights) and then, predictably, you have all these very furrowed-browed old white men sitting around a conference table being VERY CONCERNED that precisely the thing they wanted to happen came true and they are completely unprepared to do damage control on the mess they engineered because WHITE MEN ARE INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR OWN ACTIONS. 🤣😂🤣😂

In all seriousness. I wasn’t crazy about Hillary either. I don’t like dynasties of any kind, royal or political. I don’t like establishment dems who are really just center-right in the real world while masquerading as left in backwards-ass bizarro-world USA. But I’m an old motherfucker now, I’m well into my 30s, I’m boring and watch CSPAN for leisure and shit. I read the reports coming out of the DOJ. One of my degrees is in political science, though admittedly, that’s the least thing that matters, in the scope of everything else these days. But it’s safe to say Hillary was unfairly maligned while republicans committing atrocities exponentially worse have been treated with kid gloves for decades. A very distinct double standard has been applied here for....longer than I’ve been alive, that even the most educated people on the left have refused to acknowledge for far too long. I watched that entire BeNgHaZi hearing (which is easily accessible on youtube, so there’s literally no excuse not to know the facts on this), and everyone knew -- everyone knew it was a bullshit smear campaign. 

So, this post isn’t so much a review of the miniseries more than it’s an indictment of the corruption of American politics. The most damning aspect being that, on principle, US politics has always had a problem with embracing progressive policy, and basic civil rights in general. That’s not news; people have known this for some time. But the thing that this miniseries really illustrated in a very cartoonish, yet succinct, way is that there are experienced professionals who hold the highest, most powerful seats of authority in this country who won’t bat an eye at dedicating their entire careers to denigrating common decency, basic human rights, and even constitutional law, while being absolutely incapable of conceiving the long-term consequences of these actions, who will then turn around and concern troll over the ashes of the empire they enthusiastically helped to burn down. It’s nauseating. It’s infuriating. It shows a pathological disregard for personal responsibility.

Everyone was so preoccupied with their massive turgid erection for hating the Clintons (and women) that no one saw they were enthusiastically living in a henhouse built by fucking foxes. No one saw the genuine threat. 

And, by extension, no one had the balls to acknowledge that age-old instinct of white men willing to engage in a scorched earth campaign simply to satisfy their worst impulses and entitlement complexes. 

Can you fit “Who cares if we’re screwing over several generations with corrupt court-packing and a flagrant disregard for checks-and-balances predicated entirely on the honor system; we just don’t feel like doing domestic labor or respecting women and minorities so we’ll continue expediting reprehensible policies that exploit the most vulnerable people in this country because we can’t compete in an authentic meritocracy" onto a campaign slogan banner? 

I sounded the alarms on this trend 20 years ago, meanwhile. My parents and I had just gotten US citizenship, luckily months before 9/11 and the patriot act; and as an outsider looking in, as someone who had risked their life escaping a dangerous regime at an incredibly young age, I saw the warning signs in the republican party even back then. Naturally, I was denigrated as an alarmist and a butthurt liberal. 

You know, I’ll acknowledge that as a white person, I’m not the average American’s image of what an “immigrant” looks like. My experiences here over the past couple of decades have thrown into sharp relief how “immigrant” is just a dogwhistle for racist bullshit, because people who concern troll about us don’t seem to have many problems with us white ones. But I came out of a communist country. I’m straight outta the eastern bloc. And I don’t think there are any words in any spoken language that can do justice to how insulting it is when americans try to americasplain communism to me. Bitch. Y’all don’t fucking know. You just don’t.

The point is, even back then, I could see the slippery slope republicans were tumbling down, and I can't say I derive any pleasure from being vindicated in such an extreme fashion. Like. I told y’all motherfuckers. TWO DECADES AGO.

People who aren’t familiar with US politics, and even long-term US citizens who for some reason feel like it’s a waste to pay attention to your own shit, seem to spend a lot of time trying to unpack what precisely went wrong. My observations came up with 1) the manipulative aspect of US history in public schools glossing over, and even omitting, the most gruesome aspects of the revolutionary war, the holocaust, and the cold war (and oftentimes, the cold war is NEVER EVEN COVERED, which is especially insulting to me, for obvious reasons); 2) the manipulative aspect of US history in public schools teaching kids that the Declaration of independence and the Constitution are unassailable doctrines of freedom and liberty, and, as such, after independence was won, no further activism to maintain democracy was needed so we can all just smoke a bowl and be complacent because all those authoritarian third world regimes we constantly ridicule and criticize can NeVeR HaPPeN hErE 😒; and 3) how limpdick both-sidesism replaced civil, comprehensive political discussion because the right spent so long abusing, denigrating, and bullying the left that it was just easier to play it safe and take the milquetoast ~centrist~ stance, which always, always, always capitulates to the lowest common denominator, which is always the oppressor. 

And generally just this age-old trend of holding the victims of systematic oppression to a higher moral and behavioral standard than the perpetrators of systematic oppression. 

Guys, I’m tired. I’m so tired. 

I’ve gotten a few questions over the years about why my writing is so angsty, why it always seems to follow the same themes; war crimes, PTSD, gore, torture. 

I already escaped one authoritarian regime. The USA promised us one thing, and then once we got here, it started emulating the very tyrants we worked so hard to get away from. A lot of people have no idea what that feels like. How much of a betrayal that is. Especially considering all the financial and legal landmines one has to navigate just to do it, and then we’re punished for that, too.

I write about PTSD because I fucking have it. I write about war crimes because I’ve experienced them firsthand - just as a victim and not the perpetrator. I so often write about soldiers committing them because I want to roleplay what it’s like to not be a victim for once. 

tbh writing a fucking Hamilton fanfiction is one of the most cathartic things I’ve ever done, but the extensive research I’ve had to do to be able to write this thing has been low-key traumatic. There’s a lot of historical material I’ve consumed that should have been covered at the most basic level of compulsory education, but conspicuously isn’t. And I know that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s by design. 

Democracy - and independence, freedom, liberty, justice, civil rights in general - isn’t just some final xbox achievement that you unlock and then just shelve the game and forget about it for the rest of your life. You have to keep grinding to maintain it, because there will always be selfish, malicious people out there who will dedicate their entire lives playing a long con to ensure you don’t get the same opportunities as them. For the love of god, stop playing the both-sidesism game. From someone coming out of the eastern bloc, I can tell you with great confidence that that was part of the propaganda campaign you were fed to keep you from engaging so they could install a dictatorship under your nose. Do some self-guided historical research, guys. It can be very illuminating.

Anyway. I’ve gone on long enough here, but damn, don’t screw this up again, guys. Today is the first day of early voting in Texas, and I’m going to do my duty. When I first came to this country, after experiencing the rigorous vetting process and labyrinthine legal requirements of US citizenship, I was led to believe that in exchange for that privilege, I was personally responsible for my own civic self-education. It’s so much more important than you've been led to believe. 

#uspol #long post #also uhhhh brendan gleeson really needs to win an award #i hope he's ok mentally after playing that role yikes yikes yikes #also 'why do your characters so often have alcohol abuse problems' uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[paulhudd]

Spindlefreck Book Two: Pt Three: Swamp Witch

Gilray Residence, Mount Merrion, Dublin

April 21st 1989: Things were getting unbearable. Niamh felt as if she was losing her mind. Literally.

They were estranged now and Oona was having difficulty accepting the new situation. There was an increase in telepathic intrusions and Ni had to be constantly on her guard; they could come at any time, day or night. Oona was using everything in her power to make her life a misery; from childish name-calling to full-blown cerebral shouting matches, there was no end to it. Ni had given up driving into town when yet another psychic episode forced her to perform an emergency stop on one of the busy, city centre ring-roads, almost causing a pile-up. At her wits end, she took the bus to the central library and researched anything she could find on telepathy and psychic phenomenon. None of it was any help; the things described didn’t come anywhere close to what she was experiencing; it was a futile exercise that only served to antagonise her constant companion: <Why is we here? Why is ‘ee readin’ books?! I ‘ate books! Why isn't we in Top Shop or a shoe shop or somethin’ noice like that?> When Ni tried to reason with her, Oona repeated everything she was thinking in the whiny voice of a defiant 5 year-old. It got so bad that Ni had to get out her old Walkman and play tapes of obscure avant-garde music to drive her away, but she couldn't do that forever. The lack of sleep had affected her appetite and it was wearing her down; she was too tired to exercise; she looked drawn and gaunt. So, before heading over to the Somervilles that Thursday to report for babysitting duties, she broke her promise to herself and called Rossington’s private number:

“Rossington.”

“She’s still in my head. Why? How do I get rid of her?!” she cried, at the end of her tether.

“Good evening to you, too, Miss Fitzgerald, so nice of you to call...” he replied, cool as a cucumber.

“Don’t piss-me-about, James –- she still has 24-hour access and it’s been over a week since I had the last jab!” She had to lower her voice lest Paddy hear her, but she was so furious it took all her strength to keep it down, “I researched the effects of psilocybin hallucinogens and fungal toxins -– they’re more likely to get weaker over time, not stronger! Have you been injecting it into our milk-bottles or something?!”

“Piffle - and I don’t take kindly to that sort of accusation, Miss Fitzgerald,” he said, glibly. “You walked out of an experimental drug treatment at a crucial stage. My advice is return and complete the course you were contracted to take -- if the answer is no -– then you’ll have to live with the consequences --!”

She slammed the phone down and shouted at it, “What good are you anyway?!”

<That’s roight, ‘e’s uselass, ‘e ‘is.>

Ni tore at her hair and stomped both feet, “CHRIST ON A BIKE!!”

08:01pm: Somerville residence, Malahide: “Do fairies get pregnant?”

Ni slid the Bumper Book of Fairy Stories back into the little pine bookcase at the foot of 6 year-old Caitlin’s bed and said, “Cate, as I’ve told you before, your mommy will answer those sorts of questions -- I’m just the storyteller!” She went to lift little 3 year-old Cathy from Cate’s bed, but she rolled into a ball and refused to be withdrawn, “C’mon now Cathy, story’s over, sweetie, back in your cot...”

“Cathy wants to sleep in here with me,” said Cate.

“Is that right Cathy? Would you rather sleep with Cate tonight?”

Looking frightened, Cathy sucked her thumb, pulled the sheets over her face and snuggled close to Cate.

“Is she OK?” asked Ni, concerned, “she looks as if she’s afraid of me?”

“Not you. She’s scared the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz will come on her broomstick with her flyin’ monkeys ‘n take her away.”

Ni replied in an upbeat baby-talk voice, “Oh Catheeee, the Wicked Witch of the West was a nice lady called Margaret Hamilton dressed-up ‘n made-up to look like that. She was sitting on a broomstick suspended by wires with a fan blowing on her hair to make it look like she was flying – it’s only a film and she’s only an actor, silleeeee!”

But Caitlin was adamant, “There’re real witches, though – we see ‘em all the time on Perkin’s Road.”

She tried her best not to laugh, “That’s St Brigid’s -– it’s an old people’s home -- those aren't witches, they’re very old ladies! Sure, if they were witches why would the nuns be pushing them round in wheelchairs and fetching them tea-‘n’-biccies? Anyway, if there really were witches –- the sky would be teeming with ‘em –- air traffic control would be a different thing entirely!” she joked, pulling a funny face.

<Aww, ain’t that luvverleeeeeee...? They’s so cute when they’s that age, ain't they...?>

Ni kept smiling, Go away -- this isn’t the time!”

<Oi enjoyed that li’l story.>

So did I -- it kept you quiet for half an hour!

Cathy whispered in Cate’s ear. Cate passed it on, “Cathy says there’s a light round you.”

The comment made Ni’s blood run cold. She had to get out of there before things got weird, “Look kids, there’s no such thing as witches, they only exist in folklore tales and fairy stories....”

<Are ‘ee gonna tell ‘em there’s no Santa Claus nor Toof-Fairy, then?!>

Oona, I won’t tell you again, not in front of the children!!

Ni kissed them goodnight, switched off the lamp and turned on the night-light. Cathy whispered something in Cate’s ear. Cate passed on the message, “Cathy says ‘who’s Oona?’”

Ni fell to her knees in a mock-faint. Oh God... will this hell ever end...

She sat on the bottom stair, rocking back-and-forth, jiggling her leg, rattling her keys, constantly looking at her watch and sighing, 11:11? Where are they? She was playing Trout Mask Replica on the Walkman at a low volume (a definite no-no as far as Oona was concerned: Oi never ‘eard such clattery-blattery bollox!), when someone tapped her on the shoulder -- she jumped a foot into the air and dropped her keys.

Caitlin stood a few steps up, looking troubled and armed with what appeared to be a child-sized tennis-racquet; Cathy was lurking on the landing above, watching through the bars of the baby-gate. Ni pulled out the ear-buds, “What’s the matter? Bad dream, was it, honey?”

Holding the little racquet in front of her as if she was about to swat a fly, Cate explained in shaky voice, “Cathy says she saw a wee girl standin’ at the bottom of the bed.”

“A wee girl?”

“A wee girl with long-shiny-black-hair. But her head is all lumpy and wrong.”

There was something familiar about the description but she couldn’t think about it now. She whispered in Cate’s ear, “Listen honey, there are no such things as ghosts and remember, Cathy’s only 3 -- she thinks Barney the Dinosaur is a real dinosaur!”

“But she doesn’t make up stories. Mommy says we shouldn't tell fibs -– and if it’s true what would you do if she came in here now with a big knife?! You’re only a girl –- <she’d sloice you up like a well-‘ung ‘og!> cried ‘Cate’, pulling a knife from behind her back, jumping down and sticking it into the centre of Ni’s chest, laughing insanely as they tumbled head-over-heels down the last few stairs...

-- Ni awoke-with-a-start on the Somerville’s couch, those last 8 words still ringing in her ears!

Oona you bitch! What did you do that for?!

The voice in her head laughed uproariously.

Nevertheless, there, standing at the end of the couch, was Cate, little tennis-racquet in hand and a fearful look on her face. “Cathy says she saw a wee girl standin’ at the bottom of the bed.”

“A wee girl...?” said Ni, pinching herself to make sure she still wasn't dreaming.

“Aye, a wee girl with long shiny-black hair. And...?”

“... and?” her head is all lumpy and wrong?

Cate whispered instead, “... Cathy wet my bed. My jammies got wet, too.”

Ni wanted to scream.

A few minutes later -- 11 to 11 to be exact -- just as she was putting a fresh sheet on Cate’s bed, incoming headlights lit-up the windows in the hall. Shite! 20 minutes later and they’d never have known! No comment from her talking head, though. Well, at least that’s one thing I don’t have to contend with. In spite of her repeated apologies, it was as bad as she expected. Phil wasn't talking and that was always a bad sign. Pat, heavily pregnant and puffing with exhaustion, put on a strained smile, told her to go home and went about bathing the girls. Ni was mortified. Somerville waited until she’d said her goodbyes and approached her as she was unlocking the car. He had a very serious look on his face. Leaning on the roof, he casually and quietly enquired why his kids were too frightened to go back to bed.

“Phil, the movie scared Cathy, she’s seeing witches everywhere... she just has an amazing imagination. She wanted to sleep beside Cate and I couldn't see the harm... I’m sorry...” Her failure to keep eye-contact and the tremor in her voice made it look like she didn’t really believe what she was saying, and that only made matters worse.

He crossed his arms, shook his head and said, “I love you to pieces Niamh. You’re like one of me own, but you’re scaring me, never mind the weeuns. OK, you looked a bit rough after you came out of SCICI, but I thought you’d’ve come-around by now -- and look-atcha –- ye’re shakin’ like leaf, yer eyes are like two piss-holes in the snow -- yer as pale as a bottle of milk. Are you sure that bastard Rossington wasn't giving you something stronger than magic mushrooms?! - cos I’ve seen junkies livin’ in skips who look better than you!”

Ni bowed her head and burst into tears, “I dunno what to do anymore... I just.... I just can’t get her out of my head... I can’t get her out of my head...” she sobbed, utterly defeated.

Now that he’d unburdened himself and she seemed to be genuinely upset, he felt like a heel for taking the heavy-handed approach. Paddy had mentioned she was smitten with a married woman and he supposed they must've fallen out. He put his arms around her and squeezed her tight, “I didn’t know. I’m sorry for bein’ so tough on you. It’s just where my girls are concerned I get overprotective. Look, don’t drive. I’ll take you... huh?”

As she’d reached up put her arms around his neck, she’d rubbed her crotch against his suggestively; she’d put her tongue in his ear and moaned seductively. Somerville reacted immediately -- he did what he always did when a prozzie tried it on -- he spun her around so that she was facing away from him, grabbed her wrists and bent her over the bonnet of the car -- but instead of cuffing her, he whispered angrily in her ear, “I don’t ever want to see you again.” He pushed her away and walked back to the house, calling out without looking back, “Tell Paddy I’ll see him at the club. Get outta here.” A light went on above. Pat was closing the bedroom curtains, and by the look on her face, she’d seen what had happened. It was as if everything was synchronised to send her over the edge -– she needed to get away!

She was all–thumbs trying to unlock the car. What the fuck is happening to meeeee? What the fuck am I doing? She quickly got in --- the seatbelt wouldn't unwind –- it was caught in the door; she opened the door to release it -- fumbled and dropped the keys on the driveway, then banged her head on the steering wheel trying to pick them up!

The voice in her head laughed uproariously.

Fuck you Oona! Why did you do that?!

<I thought ‘ee wanted ‘im? It were one of ur fantasies, wannit? Oi was just givin’ ‘ee a li’l nudge in the roight direction.>

Ni slammed her hands against the wheel and yelled “NO!” Then she paused, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, slowly exhaled and regrouped. She started the car, calmly let off the handbrake and deftly manoeuvred around Phil’s Audi. She reversed out onto the street, all the while trying not to think about what she’d done, but as she got into the rhythm of the gear changes and slipped into autopilot, the implications slowly seeped to the front of her mind and she started shaking again. Then, just before reaching the main road, she looked in the rear-view mirror and glimpsed the top of someone’s head in the backseat –-

<This has to stop.>

It was the crackly, androgynous whisper again -- she instantly slammed on the brakes. Trembling like a leaf, she turned slowly and looked over her left shoulder...

There was no one there, of course, nevertheless she parked the car, turned off the engine, got out and sat on the kerb under the unforgiving amber glare of the street-lamps. She let it all out. She wept uncontrollably with her head between her knees, unmindful of who might see her. Luckily, like all suburban roads after 11pm, the area was deserted, and like all suburban areas after 11pm, any unusual behaviour was treated with suspicion. So when a light went on across the street and an old lady, hands on hips, watched from the parlour window, Ni couldn't have cared less. She’d reached her limit.

A minute or two later, Somerville’s Audi drew up. The passenger window wound down and he called out, “C’mon, Twink. I’ll take you home.”

She didn’t look up and let her hair hide her face, “S’OK. I’m OK. I’ll be going in a minute.”

He pulled up behind her little Fiesta, pulled a wad of tissues from the glove box of his car, got out and sat on the kerb beside her. “Pat saw what happened. She thinks I overreacted,” he said, in a kind voice, “I explained the circumstances, and we agreed: you’re not at yourself. You’re actin’ out of character and if anybody deserves a second chance, Ni, it’s you.” He gave her the tissues, “C’mon now, dry yer eyes ‘n I’ll take you home. I’ll get the local patrol to pick up the car and drop it over later.”

After a little coaxing, she eventually agreed and they walked to his car. The old lady was still watching from her parlour window. Somerville waved as he got in. She smiled, waved back and closed the curtains. “One of the many advantages of having a famous face!” he joked.

“It’s because people trust you, Phil. Just like you trusted me, and now I’ve sullied everything...” she sobbed.

“Sullied? See that’s why you always beat me at Scrabble!” He paused, then patted her knee and assured her in a low voice, “Nothin’ will change, Ni. It’ll be like it has always been. It’s forgotten. Let’s never mention it ever again.”

Oh God, Phil, if only that were true...

She’d never felt so ashamed, but Big Phil, ever the diplomat, couldn't let her stew in her own juices. He put on his ‘Thought for the Day’ hat and explained why she should forget it: “... Ni honey, 70 percent of the things we deal with are crimes of passion of one sort or another, spur of the moment madness – like road rage and domestic violence -- it’s all just all ordinary people who just snap. Somethin’ clicks in their heads and for a split second they lose their minds -- they lift a knife or a hammer and it’s all over. I mean, look at the ‘Head in the Microwave Murder’ as their callin’ it now -– those two fellas had been great buddies for 14 years –- inseparable, according to friends. Then one guy does something out-of-order, could be anything –- an insult, an insinuation, an affair, we don’t know yet -– but it sent the other guy over the edge. He sees red, lifts the oul’ Habitat meat cleaver from the counter and -– whump! You should see that poor fella now –- the murderer, not the victim -- he’s on suicide watch under heavy sedation cos he can’t live w’out the fella ‘e killed. And it’s all over the head -- if you’ll excuse the expression -- of something that coulda been sorted-out over tea ‘n’ biccies.”

He leaned over and nudged her, “Sorry, is any of this makin’ sense? I never know what to say in these situations, I tend to ramble...?”

After a sizeable pause she thought it best to clarify, “I love you Phil, but not in a sexual way, you’re like an uncle -- you’re Uncle Phil,” she said, earnestly, “I lost control, and that’s what makes this so awful...” what makes it worse is the fact that I know who’s doing it and I can do nothing to stop her...

Somerville pretended to be slightly insulted, “Well, I don’t know whether I should be glad to hear that or not, but I know what you mean. And truth-be-told, I’d be really concerned for your sanity if you thought of me that way...!”

She shook her head, “I can’t tell you what caused it, but I swear it was an aberration...”

“Aberration!” Somerville bumped his brow with the heel of his palm, “That’s the feckin’ word I was lookin’ for! T’was an ‘aberration’! See you, ye’re a walkin’ thesaurus!”  

“Oh, Phil.... I feel as if I’m dangling by my fingertips over a creek full of snapping alligators... I’m this close to jacking it all in, becoming a nun and dedicating my life to missionary work in the jungles of Central America.”

“Have ye thought about Social Work in North Dublin...?”

Somerville didn’t come in, but instead of doing a u-turn and driving back the way they came, he drove on. She had a pretty good idea where he was going, but by this time she was too exhausted, physically and mentally, to care. Paddy welcomed her home and chanced to jest, “I don’t know... lesbianism, psychedelics, nymphomania...? Who is this vampish seductress in our midst?”

“Oh, please, Paddy! Too soon!” Ni took the hankie from the breast pocket of his waistcoat and blew her nose. “How did you know?”

“Pat called. She explained what happened. She thinks it has something to do with you and this married woman,” Paddy said, regretfully, “she doesn’t know about your stay at SCICI or the drugs study, so you don’t have to worry about breaking your NDA.” He frowned and looked toward the door, “And speaking of NDAs, you know who Phil will blame for this, don’t you?”

She put her handbag on the occasional table, looked toward the door and said, “Maybe a little shake-down will shake-him-up...” Then -- out of nowhere -- “Owww!” -- she yelled, as she felt a sharp pain on her cheek -- her head swung to the right, her body swerved to the left -- her flailing arms toppled the crystal vase on the little table by the stairs -- it smashed on the tiles, spilling lupins and water over the floor! Still reeling, she slipped and fell forward -- Paddy caught her before she landed face-first on the shards!

He straightened her up and plonked her on the bottom stair, “What the hell just happened?” Then he noticed something on her cheek, “Where the hell did that come from?” She staggered to the mirror in the hall and looked; there was a scarlet welt across the pale skin of her left cheekbone and it seemed to be getting darker.

Paddy’s face went a pale shade of grey, his ‘tache drooped and his voice faltered, “Ni...... Tell me truthfully, did somebody do this to you?”

“Oh God no –- you saw me when I came in --” she thought twice about finishing the sentence when images of Oona flashed through her mind, “this just... showed up...”

“What do you mean ‘just showed up’?” he asked, exasperated.

“I dunno. It must be an insect bite from when I was sitting outside...?”

“An insect bite? That’s a contusion, my dear...” He turned on the main light and brought her closer to the mirror, “Look, you can see the impression of a wedding-ring on you cheekbone. I’ve seen this particular wound many times, on the same place on many a battered wife.” He sighed, “Dear God, Ni, what fresh hell is this...?”

I am going mad...

5 minutes ago, at the Nevin Residence in Bogmire, Co. Kildare: The door suddenly opened. The bedroom light went on. Startled, Oona wriggled under the duvet and pulled it over her head.

“What’re ye doin’!” Craigy yelled. “I’m sittin’ downstairs watching TV on me own –- again –- and you’re up here sleepin’ as usual!”

A muffled voice said, “Oi’m feelin’ poorly, me ‘ead’s sore an’ oi needs to loy down. Go ‘way.”

Craigy grinned. He turned out the light, took off his trousers and crept up to the bed, “How ‘poorly’ are ye...?” he said, sliding a hand under the duvet and groping her,

She threw off the bedclothes, her face screwed up in a hateful snarl, and squared-up-to-him, “Get ur fuckin’ ‘ands offa me, Craigy Nevin!! I told ‘ee before -– I ain’t in the mood! - and raised her hand to strike him, but before it even began its downward-arc, he caught her wrist and slapped her hard across the face, knocking her sideways -- he caught her by the arm as she fell, roughly pulled her to him and yelled into her ear “Don’t you dare ever lift a hand to me again, right?! Ye wee bitch?” and threw her down. She landed face first on the pillows, her silver hair splashing across the chocolate-brown duvet cover. She curled into a ball to cover her nakedness and began crying.

Craigy stood over her, unrepentant, snorting, hissing through gritted teeth, “Ach, don’t start gurnin’ ‘n playin’ the martyr, now! Ye drive me to such things! Ye’re always up to somethin’! You either come up here and ‘lie down’ or sit on the settee night-after-night like a feckin’ zombie off in a world of yer own! I asked you three times – three times -- to get me a cuppa tea tonight and you grunted somethin’ and I got nuthin’ -– then you go upstairs to take yer face off and you don’t come down again! Well I didn’t get married to sit on me own in a house in this shithole village in the middle of nowhere!!”

Oona snivelled like the child she really was. Her auntie Ella – who most people treated like a man, anyway – was always slapping her around, but that was kids-stuff compared to this. This was delivered with genuine spite. When he grabbed arm, she felt his loathing, she tasted the true bitterness of his words. Her castle was crashing down around her ears; her Prince Charming was an ogre and her Fairy Godmother had all but abandoned her.

It’s all her fault! She’s filled moy ‘ead wiv all these notions ‘n they do nuthin’ but get me in trouble!! Because the main thing she took away from their psychic connection was that No Man Is Better Than a Woman -- and under no circumstances should a man strike a woman. It was a doctrine that went against her upbringing, the Supplicant ethos and hundreds of years of tribal misogyny; it made sense, but this was the Real World not an Ideal World. She has me livin’ in Cloud Cuckoo Land ‘n I swallowed it up whole!!

Oona sat up, wiped the tears away with the heels of her hands and said “A cuppa tea... is that all ‘ee wants? You clobbered me fer a cuppa tea...?”

“That’s the tip of the iceberg!” He began pacing the room as he zipped up, ‘Iceberg’ being the appropriate word!” He kicked the dresser in a fit of frustration, forgot that he was wearing his slippers, and almost broke his toe, “Ahh!!” He hopped around holding his foot, “Now look at what ye’ve made me do, you silly bitch!”

She didn’t giggle or poke fun. She didn’t think it was funny at all. She feigned empathy, got up onto her knees and beckoned him hither with open arms, “You’s all toightly-wound-up, that’s all.” She patted her lap, “Come ‘ere and oi’ll give ‘ee one of moy special massages,” she said, in a sympathetic voice.

He regarded his naked wife, her pale skin glimmering in the moonlight, a beautiful sight marred by the crimson welt rising on her cheekbone. He sat on the bed with his back to her and groaned remorsefully, “Och, Oona... I’ve never hit a woman in me life... not even in the course of me duties...”

Kneading and squeezing, digging her thumbs into his shoulders, she did something she swore to herself she would never do: she read his mind. It wasn't pleasant. She saw a wishful daydream: Craigy packing his bags and moving back to Sligo. She felt the hole in his heart. The loveless sex; the disappointment; the regret. He was looking for a way out, just like Niamh.

“... I’m beginning to think this was a big set-up between your aunt and Marchant to marry-you-off! They virtually pushed me into this,” he suggested, presciently “and if that’s not bad enough, yer aunt’s got a wee network of spies watchin’ everythin’ we do! The other day I caught that auld doll across the lane, Crombie -- lookin’ through our feckin’ bin!”

“Lemme make ‘ee a noice cuppa cocoa ‘n we’ll go to bed,” she whispered in his ear, softly and nicely.

“What are you after?” he asked, suspiciously, looking over his shoulder, “I just hit you -- the next thing I know you’re all massages and cocoa...?”

She came close, looked into his eyes, cupped his cheeks, and spoke in her ‘inside voice’, the one that Ni found so alluring, “I know what’s important now. You’re right, I was off in a world of my own, but you brought me down to earth.”

He fell for it. “Oh, you’re using that voice again... I like it...”

“You stay here and I’ll bring up a little tray and we’ll have supper in bed.” She kissed him on the lips, got up and took the dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door.

“Hmmm... and you’re not gonna stick a few spoonfuls of rat-poison in it?” he asked, half-joking.

She grinned, “Don’t be silly. I’ll be 10 minutes.”

Oona went down to the kitchen and filled her new electric kettle. While it was boiling, she crept to the cupboard under the sink, reached into the back and retrieved the little bottle hidden behind the cleaning stuff. She turned it in her hands, watching the grey liquid inside flow to-and-fro, and contemplated using it. She desperately wanted to use it. If it was anyone else she wouldn't even think about it; or rather, she would think about it. She’d just have to think it and they’d dance to her tune. She could turn them all into puppets with no strings...

The kettle clicked off.

Something told her it wasn't time. Craigy was her husband, after all, he deserved a second chance. Besides, she’d promised to love honour and obey him. It don’t say nothing about killin’ ‘im, though. No, she wanted a baby, that’s all she cared about. As soon as she had a kiddie, she’d sort everything out. She’d show them all.

She put the little bottle back and made the cocoa.

SCICI; 12:38: “Well, then Barry, according to the good doctor here, you can hear me! So, howerya doin’, me auld mate?” Somerville, hands in his trouser pockets, stooped and put his ear to McKee’s cracked, unmoving lips. “What’s that Baz?” He stood up and addressed Rossington, “He thinks you’re scamming us. He thinks you’re a chancer.” He returned to the patient and shouted in his ear as if he was stone deaf, “Do you know he has cameras all around you, Barry?! You’re on more screens than Bruce Willis!” He looked around, “It’s more like a mad scientist’s laboratory than a hospital room!”

Rossington took a Georgian fob watch from his waistcoat pocket and flipped it open with his thumb, “We've enjoyed your little visit Detective Superintendent, but it’s way past Mr McKee’s bedtime, so...”

“You know something, I hate him,” said Somerville, taking one last look at the frail wretch on the bed before turning his attention back to the good doctor, “but I hate you more. He can’t help what he is and whatever he’s done he’s paid a heavy price for it –- because even if he is ‘conscious’, he’ll never have the use of his body again. He’ll still have to piss into a bag and get his dinner through a tube. Then there’s you -- a parasite living offa him. That’s how far down the food-chain you are.”

Matron Stranks, a hatchet faced harridan with terrible teeth, was champing at the bit to let rip -- she’d obviously been told to keep it shut but Big Phil’s attitude was too much to take. With every jibe and slur, her eyes got fierier, her ears got redder and her dentures clacked like arrhythmic maracas. Rossington sent her away before she exploded altogether. As her sneakers squeaked off down the corridor, he humbly apologised, “My staff is very loyal, Mr Somerville, they hate to see me suffer an indignity or injustice...”

“Bollocks. They hate me because I represent The System, not because they’re sweet on you, Jimmy boy.” Somerville chuckled, mordantly, “I had a look at your ‘staff’ file. Most of ‘em have criminal records or extremely dubious résumés; your photo-ID parade looks like a rogue’s gallery. That’s the sorta thing that makes my antenna buzz.”

Rossington sighed heavily to express his ennui and said, “Number one: I have a policy of employing ex-prisoners as part of my Restart Programme; number two: What are you doing here, detective superintendent? You come in here demanding to see Mr McKee at this unholy hour, then go on an undignified, libellous tirade...?”

Somerville walked around the bed and looked him in the eye, “A friend of mine was working for you and ever since they came outta this hell-hole they've been a shadow of their former-selves! I wanna know why!”

“If you are referring to Miss Fitzgerald, she is no longer in our employ. She signed a comprehensive NDA, and we will sue if she breaks it,” Rossington informed him, somewhat smugly.

Somerville exploded, “Fuck that! You listen to me, Jimmy boy: you stay away from Niamh Fitzgerald. I don’t care if she’s got the secrets of the universe tattooed onto the back of her eyelids –- leave her alone or I’ll nail your arse to the wall!”

Rossington smiled, “I’ll be sure to tell the commissioner about this visit when I talk to him later this morning.”

Somerville came closer and whispered, “That’s good, and while yer on the blower with ‘im, tell ‘im a blind-eye will no longer be turned to your little peccadilloes -– i.e. the frequenting of certain clubs to procure under-age persons and supplying said minors with proscribed substances. From now on you will be fair game, old chum, so it’ll be in your best interest to keep your nose -– hahaha -– clean!” He walked away, shouting over his shoulder, “Give the boss my best!”

A few days later, in the Wetlands of Bogmire, Co. Kildare, in the grounds of Pagham House: Clad in scuba gear or hazmat suits and waders, Paddy and his little expeditionary force were meticulously excavating the exact spot Ni had specified via a very detailed sketch. Using a weight-and-pulley system that was as laborious as it was awkward, they toiled undeterred. They knew something big was in the offing and everyone wanted to be the first to find it, not even the foul smell of the slime could deter them. Ni had stayed behind to pick up Emil from the airport; Paddy thought it would be best if they got started a day early before he had time to ask too many questions or raise any objections.

Scanlon the groundskeeper and Sergeant Marchant [Laphen and Gorringe were still in Europe shooting a movie] sat on a low bough a few feet from the bank and watched with binoculars as they ate their elevenses. Holding his waterproof Pentax aloft, Paddy broke away from the others and waded through the mire, put a boot up on the bank, looked up at the spectators and asked, nicely, “Ahem, would either of you men like to take photographs for me? You've got a good view from up there and I have to supervise the last bit of unearthing... Would you mind?”

The men put down their binoculars and stared back with blank expressions. Eventually Scanlon responded officiously, “We were told only to observe. Carry on as if we’re not here. Thank you.”

Paddy sighed at the obvious disdain in the man’s tone and turned away, “OK. Sorry to have bothered you... I’ll just put this on a rock and set the automatic shutter. Careful you don’t knock it down when you dismount. Thank you!”

“Dickhead,” said Scanlon under his breath as he watched the big scientist wade away. He nudged his companion and hissed, “That’s Gilray. Keep an eye on him, too. He’s the uncle of the Fitzgerald girl. She’s due to get here sometime later today, so remember -- keep her away from Oona. That is yer No.1 priority, got it?!”

The sergeant nodded, “For the hundredth time – aye! OK, OK! Jesus, you wanna watch yerself, this sorta stress isn't good for your heart!”

Scanlon watched Paddy convene with the students and grumbled, “...bloody Oona Umbert... You be sure and tell that husband of hers to keep her indoors til this blows over,” he mumbled though a mouthful of sandwich, “... first the Roxboroughs sell the house –- and now -- just when things were settling down nicely, my new lord ‘n’ master decides it’s time to dredge up the past...”

“What could there be down there that would cause you any trouble?” asked Marchant.

“... why would he give them permission to do this?” said Scanlon, angrily, ignoring the sergeant’s question; then his tone took an ominous turn when he said, “Maybe we should ask Dr Jimmy, eh?”

The Sergeant carried on eating and pretended he hadn't heard.

Scanlon pressed on, “Because when I met with him the other night, he seemed to know an awful lot about what’s been goin’ on around here.”

The sergeant reached for another sandwich, “How would I know about that, now...?”

“He pays you to keep him abreast of developments, sergeant, isn't that so?” Scanlon’s face clenched into a scowl.

The sergeant returned the glare with frightened eyes.

“I’ve turned a blind eye to it so far because it might work to my advantage. So you can keep in touch with him, find out what he’s up to and relay it back to me, alright? Or I’ll have you transferred outta here so fast it’ll rip the ‘tache off yer face!”

The sergeant resumed chewing, a look of horror on his face –- then he almost fell off his perch when the big groundskeeper’s walkie-talkie exploded into life.

A garbled, hissy voice screeched: “... ROGER OVER, COME IN COME IN... SCANLON... MR SCANLON YOO-HOO... COME-IN ROGER-ROGER COME IN...” It was Ella Sparkes.

“Bloody woman...” Scanlon unclipped the receiver from his belt and pressed the button, held it well-away from his ear and tried to keep his voice under control, “... I’m here! There’s no need to shout!!”

Silence.

Scanlon’s voice got a little louder, “Press the button when you want to speak! Over.” There was a pause, then he almost dropped the handset when the voice roared: “ - etter get up here, you’ll never guess who just showed up - roger-out-over... click.”

Scanlon’s voice got ever louder, “Who? Over.” Pause. He sighed and pressed his button again, “Press the button!”

Mrs Sparkes was confused: “What? What pullover? Roger...Over?”

“WHO IS IT – OVER?!” Scanlon barked.

Prolonged silence; crackling static.

Scanlon lost it: “Press the fucking button! Over! ... COME IN!” Nothing. He raised the handset above his head as if he was going to throw it – then thought better of it and shook his head, “Feckin’ woman is useless when it comes to electrical appliances. It took us 30 years to get her to use a vacuum cleaner. Well, I suppose I may go and see who tis,” he gave the walkie-talkie to Marchant, Give me or Charlie a shout on this if they find anything.” Scanlon poured the dregs from his cup onto the mulch below, then capped his flask, jumped down and landed with a squelch; he shouted one last command before setting-off, “And remember what I said about Oona -- alright?!”

Marchant bit off another mouthful... and as he chewed, he took a deep breath – and quickly spat it out as an unholy stench filled his nostrils! “Eeeuggh! What the fuck is that?”

There was always a peculiar smell around this place, and over the years they’d become accustomed to it, but this was something else entirely! It was strong enough to stop Scanlon in his tracks. He covered his nose & mouth with his handkerchief, looked back and reiterated the sergeant’s exclamation, “What the fuck is that?!”

The little pulley on the frogmen’s raft was winding up, dredging up mud and slime, unleashing an ungodly stench none of them could stomach. It was so pungent, the students who weren’t gagging and vomiting were falling over each other in their efforts to get away...

A hundred yards or so further down the bank, Oona watched the proceedings from behind an oak tree. The smell didn’t bother her none; she knew how to shut it out. She was more interested in what was coming up. She’d looked in Ni’s mind and this is exactly how she’d imagined it, but she had no interest herself. It’s just an ol’ bog. Who cares what’s in it? Nonetheless, she felt drawn to the place -- she felt this was something she had to see. But why...?

<Because it’s your destiny, Oona. >

It was that strange voice again. She took the little compact from the pocket of her apron, opened it and stared into the misty glass; <What do you mean?>

<The mortal remains of two people have emerged from the swamp. One is an evil seed unearthed to germinate in the open air after thousands of years of marinating in bog water and peat. The other is a little girl who met with an unfortunate end years later. She will be your Spirit Guide for a while.>

<What does that mean?>

<She’ll be your little friend. A constant companion, like Niamh, only she’ll control your... urges.>

She didn’t know how to take this. She didn’t want another voice talking in her brain, especially the voice of a little girl who died years ago. It would be like having a ghost living in her head.

<If it’s any consolation, your boyfriend’s back.>

This news put everything else out of her mind -– she knew exactly who he was talking about! <Kris?! Kris is back?! >

She began to run in the direction of the big house, but stopped in her tracks when the voice reminded her, <Ahem, excuse me, but besides the fact that you’re married, they've kept you apart for seven years for a reason –- they’re not going to let you see him now. Not now that you’re a fully grown Silver Siren. You’re too powerful. And by the way, that gash on your cheek makes you look like a battered wife... which, quite frankly, is what you are. I mean, what would he think?>

She looked at her own reflection in the little mirror and touched the welt, <Oi could put some foundation on it, oi s’pose...?>

Her attention was broken by a rustling in the bushes, “Hey there girlie – what are ye up to there?” shouted Sergeant Marchant, staggering through the brush. He wasn't too steady on his feet and he didn’t look too good.

Oona put on her little girl’s voice, “... just takin’ a shortcut to the orchards ‘n oi ‘eard the rumpus ‘n wondered what wuz goin’ on...?”

Marchant was extremely green around the gills and sweating profusely, but tried to continue the conversation, “You’re a bloody liar, the orchards are on the other side of therrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeugh!” and duly threw up.

She tiptoed around him and ran for home to put on some make-up, her ‘good clothes’... and Ni’s big blue ‘ bipperty-bopperty hat’...

Midday, at a pick-up-point in Dublin airport: Watching in the wing-mirror, Ni spotted him coming out through the arrivals door. She pumped the horn, wound down the window and yelled, “Emil!”

She’d almost forgotten how much she fancied him. Salt-and-pepper, well-trimmed beard, greying hair tied in a ponytail, he was certainly showing his age, but no less handsome; more so, actually. With his customary well-worn khakis and cargo shorts, tatty lumberjack shirt over a faded Allman Brothers tee-shirt, he always reminded her of a scruffy medico from the MASH movie. She touched the welt on her cheek and frowned. It was going to be hell trying to keep it from him.

He waved back and trotted across the busy concourse toward the car, threw his backpack onto the backseat and climbed in, “Nice to see you, Li’l Twinkie!” He tried to kiss her cheek -– she felt the fronds of his whiskers brush her skin -- but she kept her head turned and kept watching the traffic in her wing-mirror. He was a little surprised by her lack of reciprocation, but unconcerned, “I was expecting Paddy in one of his vintage saloons with a roomy interior – good job I’m travelling light...” Before he had time to say anything else, Ni took off -– they bounced over the zebra-crossing speed-bump (Emil’s head hit the sunroof several times) -- she sped around a busy roundabout with scant regard for road safety and sliced across 3 lanes of traffic on her way to the exit ramp whilst a cacophony of angry horns blared behind them. The manoeuvre had Emil clutching the dashboard for dear life, “Jeeeeeeezusssss Niamh!”

“I’m too afraid to take one of Paddy’s old cars. If I was to get a scratch on one of them, he’d have a conniption,” she said, indifferently, zipping through a steady amber and taking a sharp right. Also, I have to get this over with before the madwoman in my head starts her shenanigans again.

As the car swung onto the centre lane of the motorway, Emil slid the seat back as far as it would go and attached his safety belt, his big brown knees pressed against the glove-box. Eventually, he felt it safe enough to make with the smalltalk (he still hadn't looked at her, he couldn't take his eyes off the road – which was just how she wanted it), “I nearly didn’t make it –- Fran was on the warpath -– she’d told friends we’d go jet-skiing in Maine this weekend. We had to cancel, so I had to do the whole ‘it’s a tradition with my best friend’ routine... But her mother has been poisoning the well again, telling her that I do nothing for her, and so I get it in the neck every time I wanna do something for Me...” and off he went on one of his maudlin diatribes about the injustices of having an angel for a wife and the Mother-In-Law From Hell™, but, hey, maybe that’s why he married Fran in the first place, because opposites attract... she represents everything he resists: conformity... button-down, middle class life... conventions of society... blah, blah, blah... as was his wont when he’d had a few. She didn’t mind; she loved the sound of his voice.

<‘E’s a borin’ twot, ain’t ‘e?>

Go away! I’m driving!

<And ‘e smells of booze! >

He’s had a few on the plane -– now go away! You’ll get us killed!

But it was worse than usual. Every jibe was delivered in the spiteful tone of an immature jilted lover. Ni immediately pushed a tape of Neu! into the cassette player, “Sorry Emil, I need to listen to this. I find it helps me concentrate,” she explained in a strained voice, as the atonal buzzsaw-guitar of Negativland blasted out of the Fiesta’s little speakers. Emil was too ‘cool’ and tipsy to object, although judging by the uncomprehending frown and exaggerated grimace, he didn’t like it (he was more of a Dylan/Beatles/Hendrix fan), so she turned it down.

Oona was irritated but too intent on causing trouble to be deterred, <‘e’s quoite dishy, in ‘e? You think so anyway. I ‘ad a look in ur fantasies ‘n ‘is name is top of the list, you dirty gurl! >

Ni gritted her teeth, her knuckles white on the wheel, Oona, this isn't the time or the place, I’m on a busy motorway -- we’ll talk later -- go and do some chores!

But Oona wouldn't let it go, <‘e still hasn’t even looked at you yet!! ‘E’s witterin’ on ‘bout ‘is bloody woife ‘n there’s you -- this doyno-moite blonde -- sittin’ roight besoide ‘im! Wot’s ‘is problem, then?!>

He’s a 53 year old married man, Oona. He has no interest in me...

<Ur picturin’ it though, aintcha! I can see ‘ee! You ’n ‘im in a tent in the woods -- that’s the big fantasy, innit?!>

As the psychic dialogue escalated to a full-blown telepathic brawl, the speedometer climbed to 73mph.

Oh – and how’s your knight in shining armour?! Been smacking you around has he? Please warn me when he decides to knock you about again and I’ll be sure to keep a first aid kit handy!

That shut her up, which was a good thing since Emil had reached the end of his list of grievances, “... well, that’s my trials and tribs out of the way -– how is Paddy? How come he’s already at the site? He usually rings the night before I leave, but not a word. I called his service and left a message, but as of yet, no reply. What gives, Twinkie?”

Ni un-gritted her teeth and tried to sound chirpy, “Erm, Paddy didn’t know what equipment you might need so he went down a day early to do a recce with some of the students...”

He was very surprised, “Really? What’s with all the mystery? Where is the dig?”

“All will be revealed once we get there,” she said, without ceremony.

“You don’t seem so excited,” he said, still confused.

She sidetracked him, “Look, Emil, I have to call at the house -– I forgot my wetsuit. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes...?” This was true, but it was also the ideal opportunity to get him to drive the rest of the way.

She was aware of him shifting in his seat and looking at her. She turned her head away slightly so that the welt on her cheek was well hidden. “I must say, you’re looking well.” She heard the gratified surprise in his voice. She felt his eyes appraising her.

Oona tittered, <’ere we go...>

Get lost! She glanced sideways and said, “Well, I don’t look so good day, I’m knackered. Up all night with a... headache.”

Emil continued to pile on the compliments, “No, I mean, you look so... what’s right term? Blooming? All grown up. You’re usually hidden under an oversized sweater and baggy pants!”

<See, I tol’ ‘ee them jeans look good on ‘ee!>

Yes, thank you. “Och, don’t tease me, Emil, please, you’re gonna.... make me...”

“I’m not teasing! You look great!”

She suddenly felt very light-headed. The world was awhirl... the road ahead became a starlit blur

and just before the darkness descended, she happened to glance in the rear-view-mirror and once again saw a someone sitting in the back behind her. A figure dressed in a black motorcycle jacket with long, jet black, straggly hair hanging down over its face so that only its mouth and lower jaw were visible, but the cleft in the chin, the clean-shaven, alabaster skin were unmistakeable, it was a youthful, fully functional Barry McKee...

or was it?

The inside of the car brightened and everything went white

isn’t it a little girl?

12 or 13, long black hair...

That smell,

it was overwhelming, like every bad smell you could think of rolled into one nauseating miasma, filling her nostrils, filling her lungs, filling her mouth

she couldn't breathe.

Panicking, thrashing, gasping for air

sleep came down

her hands let go of the wheel and fell limp at her sides, her head lolled onto her shoulder and thudded against the driver side window.

“NIAMH!” Emil immediately unclipped his belt and lurched for the wheel -– simultaneously, he slowly raised the handbrake -- the Fiesta veered onto the hard-shoulder and skidded on the gravel, spun around three times before settling in a circle of tyre tracks shrouded by a terracotta-tinted dust-cloud -- half-in-half-out of the inside lane! A deafening horn blasted and a huge freight truck missed them by inches! He shouldered the car back onto the shoulder, then ran around to Ni’s side and opened the door...

Back at Paddy’s kitchen:

She’d begged him not to take her to hospital and told him she desperately needed some sleep. It was obvious that she was mentally and physically spent, so Emil reluctantly capitulated but insisted that he drive the rest of the way. Luckily, during the melee he hadn't noticed the mark on her cheek, so she kept her face covered with her hair until they got back to Paddy’s. They went to the kitchen and Emil checked her vitals and everything appeared to be sound, “You’re a very lucky girl. I don’t know what might’ve happened if I hadn't been there.”

“Oh, stop Emil, it doesn’t bear thinking about,” she said, groaning, sitting down at the table and thinking about it.

There was some beer left over from Gourmet Night, so he cracked-open a bottle and took a long slug and delivered his diagnosis: “Your blood sugar level has crashed and you need sleep. I prescribe a Labatt Club Sandwich with plenty of straight Coke!” he cracked open a can, put it in front of her and began buttering bread.

She answered absentmindedly, still contemplating what might have been, “I skipped breakfast... I overslept... the last week has been a nightmare. Literally.”

“Burning the candle at both ends, are ya?” He flashed that dashing, devilish grin of his and winked, “Sex? Drugs? All night raves?!”

“No, I’ve been working at SCICI: St Cedric’s Institute for the Criminally Insane. I was an intern, but I... I volunteered to do a drugs test. It didn’t agree with me. I’m still recovering, really.”

“What sort of drug was it?” he asked, opening a pickle jar and popping one in his mouth.

<Tell ‘im the truth. Go on –- tell ‘im ee spend ur days dozin’ ‘n playing wiv me -- playin’ wiv urself!>

“Fuck off, you sick bitch...!” Ni hissed, aloud.

Emil stopped chewing, “Sorry...?”

Shit! Think of something -- answer the question!! “Umm... Sorry, I can’t talk about it, had to sign an NDA.”

“NDA? Is that right?” He took another slug of beer to wash down the pickle, stopped for a minute, then asked with an inquisitive frown, “SCICI? I’ve heard of that place. They take in psychos from all around the world and study them, don’t they? Does it have something to do with the treatment of psychopaths or...?”

“Please, don’t ask Emil, it’s ultra-top-secret...”

“’Ultra-top-secret’ is it?” he reiterated, sardonically. He looked at her, “Whatever it is, it suits you, but in a... strange way. You look different. Older. Paler. Your eyes look darker, your hair looks blonder... you look very...nice...” he stroked her hair.

<Oh ho, ‘e’s got that look in ‘is eye!>

Get lost!

“What the... where the hell did you get this?” He’d finally seen the weal on her cheek! Shit. “It was an accident...” she said, weakly.

He put his hand under chin, raised her head and examined it closely, “Don’t bullshit me, Ni. This is a classic contusion associated with domestic violence –- commonly known as a backhander. In fact, I can see the impression of a wedding ring. Has Paddy seen this?”

“Yes. He was there when I got it,” she said, getting up, too tired to think of an excuse.

“He was there?!” he said, shaking his head in astonishment.

“Look, Emil, I’ll explain later, I’m absolutely shattered,” she sighed, “I’m going to bed for a couple of hours.”

He looked her in the eye, his voice half-angry-half-troubled, “Somebody’s been knocking you around, haven’t they? And a married man of all things?!”

“Emil, I really need to sleep...?”

He backed up, “I get it. I get it. None of my business,” he said, putting his hands up in an exaggerated gesture of surrender. He picked up the sandwich from the counter, plonked two straws in the can of Coke and gave them to her, “Go on -– eat, sleep -- I’ll chill-out with a beer or two and sleep off the jet-lag in front of the TV. Set your alarm for 5pm,” he said, waving her away.

She went upstairs, ate the sandwich, got undressed and got into bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow

<He’ll come to ur room wake ‘ee up ‘n do ‘ee.... >

Shit, shit, shit! The Walkman was in her case in the car, there was no way of shutting her out!

C’mon Oona, enough is enough, I’m totally drained. You of all people must know that. I’ll be down there soon; we’ll talk about it face-to-face --

<’Ee just wanna do ‘im while oi’m gone! Oi wanna watch ’ee for a change!> There was a heavy hint of jealousy in her tone. This wasn't going to end soon.

Ni put a pillow over her face and screamed a muffled scream. Then she sprung up, pulled on her dressing gown and marched across the landing to the phone by Paddy’s bed.

<Go ahead, call ‘im, it won’t do ‘ee any good.>

She sat on the bed, put the phone on her lap and stabbed the number into the key pad.

<I ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘n ‘e can’t make me!>

“Rossington.”

“It’s Niamh.”

“Oh. I thought you were off dredging the swamp.”

“She’s out of control and I’m at my wit’s end.” She explained the situation quickly while Oona chimed along with every word, “She’s at it as-we-speak! She’s fucking driving me insane! Tell me what to do -- I’ll do anything!”

He heaved a world-weary sigh, “Did you show her the door?”

“The door is permanently open and I can’t close it!! She’s too powerful now. I almost died on the motorway today! Not only that, but I’m starting to experience physical phenomenon! I’ve got a welt on my face from where her husband hit her!”

Rossington seemed genuinely interested, “Really? That’s a new one. Must make a note of that...”

“Fuck you, James! I’m serious!”

“Have you been talking about the project? Your friend Detective Superintendent Somerville came to see me. He threatened me because he thinks I’ve been, in his words, ‘screwing you up’?”

“Oona was plaguing me when I was babysitting his kids –- they picked up on it somehow, and it frightened the life out of them. He knows about the drug test, but not the details, he blames you for my.......?”

The hand holding the receiver dropped to her side. Silence. She listened to her thoughts. The chiming had ceased. No fuzziness. No tinnitus-like ringing in her ears. No incongruous mirages suddenly flashing through her mind. No bridge of clouds, no beach, no door, opened or closed. She felt unburdened. Her mind was her own.

Oona was gone.

“Niamh?.............. Miss Fitzgerald .......?”

“Niamh?”

“Niamh...?”

Emil was standing at the door, “Ni? I heard shouting. I thought you were in distress...”

“Niamh, are you there...?”

She put the receiver back to her ear, “It’s OK, James, everything’s OK. See you soon.” She rang-off and stared into space, listening to her thoughts.

Emil, hands in his pockets, loitering in the doorway, stared daggers at the phone, “’James?’ Is that the guy responsible for the gash on your cheek?” he growled.

In a way, yes. “No. He was my boss at the institute, and he’s gay.”

She looked at him. All her old fantasies about him replayed in her psyche, only this time no one was watching.

Emil was looking through his fingers, “Twinkie, um, adjust your robe, babe, I’m getting quite an eyeful here ....”

She didn’t adjust her robe. She gave him more of an eyeful when she walked to the window and pulled the curtains, took off the gown, slipped into Paddy’s big four-poster and pulled back the sheets invitingly. “Please. I need this and it has to be now.”

Wide-eyed and opened mouthed, he visibly baulked as he took it in, “What?! NO!”

She pointed out the burgeoning lump in his shorts, “I know you want to and I want to too.”

He was contemplating it. He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. Then he looked at her again and had a change of heart. He stood up, shook his head and refused to give in to his baser nature, “No. It would ruin a beautiful friendship.”

“One time offer,” she said, in all seriousness, “I’ll never feel this way again, and we will never ever mention it again. It’ll be like it never happened. Just switch off for half-an-hour, enjoy the ride, then we’ll sleep-it-off in separate beds.”

She knew the resulting pause for reflection and overt inner-conflict was all for show: a respectful pause before he did what he really wanted to do. Finally, he said, “This is madness” and tore off his shirt, revealing his trim, hairy body; he opened his belt, unbuttoned his shorts and jumped in before she changed her mind...

Afternoon delight my arse.

It had been one of the most horrifying experiences of her life – clothes on or off. It wasn't that he was bad at it or inattentive, it was the fact that during the intercourse, she found herself unwittingly locked into his psyche: as soon as he penetrated her body, she found herself penetrating his mind. To her amazement, she could read his thoughts, and it wasn't a pleasant experience, not at all. It became clear that he regarded young women as little more than talking dolls -– and with each buck of his hips, a succession of previous conquests, usually his students, mimicked her grimaces; blondes, redheads, skinny girls, chubby girls, girls with glasses in various states of undress, flashed before her eyes. But the creepy thing was they all had Niamh’s mother’s face! He was in love with her mother! That made it even worse! She stopped groaning and writhing, looked up at his reddened, straining face, and waited for him to finish. He was too wrapped-up in his own trip to notice her inertia. When he was done, she stayed for a few minutes as a courtesy and listened to his apologies for succumbing to a moment of madness, the inner-monologue forever contradicting the words coming out of his mouth. Once the clichés were done with, he fell asleep inside three minutes. She hadn't uttered a word for the entire twelve and a half.

He was right about one thing, though: It had ruined a beautiful friendship.

She had a hot shower and let the water run through her hair, wishing it would seep through her scalp into her brain and wash away the memory of what just happened. And as she rinsed the suds from her eyes, another swirl of dizziness swept over her –- her knees buckled –- she stumbled backwards into the wall and slid down the tiles until she was sitting on the floor. She wiped the soap out her eyes, and as they focused, she gazed through the frosted glass of the cubicle door and saw a dark shadow against the stark whiteness of the bathroom; it appeared to be standing on the mat by the bath. “Emil...?” she muttered, even though she knew it couldn't possibly be him. Putting one arm across her breasts and the other across her lap, she crawled closer to the glass, wiped it clear and looked out, “Who’s that...?” She reached up and slowly slid the door back...

It wasn't in the room; it was a reflection in the mirrored tiles of the wall along the bath. The glass was steamed up, the little figure was a blur, however, it was plainly a little girl with long black hair, dressed in a filthy nightdress standing straight-backed with her head bowed, her hands folded in front of her, as if getting a dressing-down from the headmistress: Is this the girl that little Cathy Somerville saw...?

“Who are you...?” she said softly, as she stepped out, snatched a towel from the rack, wrapped it around her and slowly approached. The closer she got, so the little figure got much taller and more masculine until it grew to the size of a fully grown man, only the long black tresses remained. She recoiled and lifted the only available weapon to hand: the loo-brush; she brandished it in her shaky hands; when it became clear the creature wasn't going to speak, she asked in a tremulous whisper, “... are you Barry McKee...? Or are you the demon that possesses him...? Or am I suffering from a new form of schizophrenia...?”

The crackly voice resounded between her ears: <I’m here to give you peace of mind.>

8 minutes later, she was pulling the sheets off the bed and informing the former man of her dreams, “C’mon, get up and get dressed. I wanna get down there before dark.”

Emil sat up and watched her tidy-up around him, a look of disbelief on his face, spouting superlatives like a besotted teenager, “What a trip that was. I haveta tell ya, and I’m being honest, that was the most amazing thing... It felt as if  we were locked together -- body ‘n soul -- it was like we were flying! It was like: Woah!”

She ignored him, “Please get up, I have to strip the bed and change it.”

He staggered to his feet and pulled on his shorts, “Didn't you feel it? It was like we were sharing a dream... Awesome!” He continued in this vein for a while until it became clear she wasn't similarly impressed. He watched her with narrowed eyes, as if sizing her up. “You've changed, you know that?” he said at last.

“I always change after a shower,” she said, impassively.

As she locked up the house and they made their way to her car, it was introspection time again. Gone was the cock-sure, intelligent adventurer with a witty quip for every occasion, instead, he trudged along behind her, moping, grumbling in a self-pitying groan about how big a deal it was and how much trouble he’d be in if anyone found out. “Your mother will kill me! My wife will divorce me! Oh God -- and we did it in Paddy’s bed! I won’t be able to look him in the eye ever again...”

She spun on her heel, “Shut the f --” she began to shout, before remembering it was the weekend and the neighbours were likely to hear, and lowering her voice to an angry whisper, “it’s forgotten. Didn't happen, remember? Speak of it no more, please!”

They exchanged suspicious looks then got into the car.  She adjusted the seat and tried to put the keys in the ignition, but her hands were too shaky, her head was too fuzzy, and in spite of the mystery voice’s assurances, she couldn't be sure Oona would make a comeback, “Can’t drive, still a bit groggy. You’ll have to do it.” She bounced over into the passenger seat, pulled up the hood of her hoodie and assumed a foetal-position turned away on her side, looking out of the window so she didn’t have to look at him. She felt him get in, readjust the seat and try to get comfortable. He had difficulty getting it started, “Fucking piece of shit car,” he yapped, as the engine spluttered twice then stalled, “It’s like a goddamn downhill-racer!!” He pounded the steering wheel with his fists. The car rocked and boomed. She didn’t lose her temper or shout him out, instead, without turning toward him, she told him exactly what he was thinking, “...’she’s over eighteen’ ‘it was her who invited me in’ ‘I’d been drinking on the plane’ ‘no man could refuse an offer like that’ ‘What if she spills the beans?’ ‘Oh my God, what if she gets pregnant?’...” she iterated, dispassionately. 

She was numb to it all. She just accepted the gift of telepathy as the latest in a series of incredible events set in motion when she first visited Bogmire and met Oona Umbert. It was getting boring now.

Emil was dumbfounded, “How do you do that? It’s like you’re reading my mind! Jeezus – you are just like --”

She turned, dug her elbow into his ribs and marked his card, “Now you listen to me, mister -– I am not my mother. This has nothing to do with her. I wasn't using you to settle a score or get one over on her. But I did use you. I was horny. It could've been anyone. You were the nearest thing with a pulse. Does that make you feel better?! Don’t get hung-up-on-it -– just drive!”

He gaped at her with uncomprehending eyes and said without irony, “I think I might be in love with you...”

Meanwhile, in the grounds of Pagham house: Wearing her nicest summer frock and her best shoes, one hand holding onto Ni’s big floppy blue hat to stop it from blowing off in the strong breeze, the other clutching her silvery clutch-bag, Oona crept along the path that led from the edge of the woods to the rear of the house. She planned to enter via the old disused servants’ door, she could get to the kitchens from there and sneak through to the main house. She got as far the old courtyard where the moss-covered graves of the 8th Dukes’ wife & child lay, when Charlie Noble, the bespectacled, beer-gutted head of security, pulled up and blocked her path with his jeep. “Where do you think you’re goin’, Mrs Nevin?” he enquired, in his dense North Antrim accent. He got out and walked toward her. She tried to run around him, but despite his size, he was quite agile –- he turned and deftly caught her by the arm, “Hey, hey, hey – where’s the fire, now?”

“Kris is ‘ere! Oi know ‘e’s ‘ere - oi can sense ‘im!”

“Well now, you can’t see Kris, Oona, he’s talkin’ to Mr Scanlon.”

“So ‘e is ‘ere!” she cried, excitedly, jumping up and down.

“You can’t see him! C’mon now, I’m takin’ you home!” he said, pulling her toward the jeep.

“That will not be necessary!” She replied in her poshest voice, as she squirmed out of his grasp and made to walk back the way she came, “Oi’d rather walk –-” she said, took a few steps then suddenly veered to the left towards the path that led to the front of the house –- the manoeuvre caught him off-guard -- he slipped on the mossy cobbles and fell on his arse, “Bollocks!” She bolted, “KRIS!!” she yelled repeatedly as she ran along the path “KRIS!!” Unfortunately her new shoes weren’t built for speed and it wasn't long before Charlie caught up with her and grabbed her from behind. He tried to reason with her as she struggled in his arms, “Now c’mon! Home with ye!!” He took the walkie-talkie from his shoulder and waved it in front of her face, “I’ll call yer auntie, I will! I’ll tell her ye’re out here tryin’ to get in!” She tore away from his grasp, spun on her heel and headed back down the path, “I can go home on me own!” she said, haughtily as she walked off into the trees.

He thought for a moment then walked after her, “Oona! Waitaminnit! Please listen to me!”

His voice sounded sympathetic so she stopped.

Charlie walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, “Don’t come lookin’ for young Kris, Oona. Ye’re playin’ into ol’ Scanlon’s hands, darlin’. Nuthin’ would please him better than if you wuz to do somethin’ stupid.”

She shrugged off his hands, turned and shouted, “Why would oi do somethin’ stoopid?! Why won’t they let me see ‘im now we is all growed up?! We’s ol’ friends for ‘eaven’s sake!”

“You know why, Oona, you’re not like other girls, you’re... special,” he explained, pointing to his head, “and we haveta be extra careful where Kris is concerned, he’s the boss’ favourite grandchild, he can’t come to any harm.”

“But I don’t wanna hurt ‘im -- I luv ‘im!” she cried, tearfully.

“That’s what they’re worried about,” said Charlie, dolefully.

She gripped the hem of skirt, fell to her knees and screamed in frustration at the top of her voice -– the trees around them shook -- an ivy-covered branch snapped loose from the upper boughs of a dead chestnut tree and crashed to the ground, missing Charlie by inches! He backed up, scared out of his wits. “How the hell did you do that?!”

She was just as shocked. Something had snapped in her head -- there was a terrible rushing in her ears -- she saw fireworks exploding in front of her eyes -- it felt like her bones had turned to jelly! She toppled onto her side, eyes wide open, twitching and drooling...

Suddenly, just as they were driving along the dirt track that led to woods, a wave of nausea surged in Ni’s tummy, “Pull over -- gonna be sick!”

As soon as Emil slammed on the brakes -- she threw open the door and threw-up the sandwiches he made her earlier that day. He got out and shouted across the roof, “You OK...? Want me to hold your hair or something...”

She spat out the last of the chunks and shouted over her shoulder, “No! Go on ahead... it’s just round the corner, I’ll walk... need to get some fresh air...” Not that the air here could be described as fresh. “OK, then. See you at the bog!” He said, giving her a glum look before driving off.

What’s happening now? She took a few minutes to recover and wipe her mouth with a tissue, when a jeep came hurtling down the dirt track, and as she stood back to let it pass, she glanced inside -- and saw a familiar face propped up against the passenger side window -- Oona! -- for a split second she looked straight at Ni, or to be more precise, she looked through her. She was like a beautiful zombie, her deathly pallor and deathly stare making it impossible to tell if she was dead or alive. Ni ran after them shouting “STOP!”, but the driver was in too much of a hurry to hear her. She stopped running, buckled in two and threw up again. When she eventually stood up, she espied a diminutive figure standing in the long grass that bordered the woods.

It was the same little girl she’d glimpsed in the bathroom. The same little girl the Somerville girls described: long, shiny-black hair, but at this distance it was hard to make out her features. “Hello... Are you lost?” Ni called out, as she climbed over the wall and slowly approached, “Are you a local, honey? Do you live in Bogmire...?”

The little girl turned, ran into the trees and disappeared from view – “Come back!” shouted Ni, running after her, until she got to the edge of the wood and had to stop to throw up again...

In the east wing of Pagham house: The old infirmary hadn't been in use since the late 1950s, when Laphen bought the house. It had been originally intended as a hospital for the Redmen, but since they rarely got ill or endured an injury that required medical assistance and a sick-bed, it had been left to gather dust. But this was an unprecedented occasion, so they called on the services of a doctor.

Ella Sparkes opened the windows and shutters to allow rays of late afternoon sunshine to flood the room, turning the yellowing net-curtains into shimmering golden clouds, and unsettling a dust cloud that made the attendees cough and splutter. They composed themselves, gathered around the gurney and looked down at the patient.

[it was so bright Oona thought she was in Heaven looking up at the face of St Peter and the angels]

“Her eyes are open. That’s odd,” said Dr Morgan, an 83 year old GP originally from Anglesey who’d retired to a cottage in Carlow in the late-70s. Affable and slightly detached, Morgan ministered to the villagers’ medical needs, kept them stocked with painkillers and penicillin and dealt with any emergencies, such as the one in hand. He was partial to a pot of poteen, hence no stranger to blackouts himself, but this was a new one on him, “Are you sure she hasn’t been using drugs or alcohol?” he asked, in his melodious Welsh accent.

“No. Drugs is forbidden by our religion, and ‘er ‘usband’s a gard, so I very much doubt it,” replied Mrs Sparkes. Her eyes narrowed – she looked at the trio of men around the foot of the bed, “Unless theseuns know any different?”

The Dr Morgan looked to the men.

They shook their heads, “As far as we know she’s clean,” vouchsafed Scanlon.

“... No history of epilepsy, fits, sleepwalking or anything like that?” asked the doctor.

The old woman chewed her cheek and looked and looked at Scanlon, “Lemme think, now...”

Scanlon glowered.

She lowered her head, “No, but, umm... but she ‘as a lot goin’ on in her ‘ead all the toime.” She looked Oona and asked in all sincerity, “Could she‘d’ve blew a fuse or somethin’?”

Charlie chuckled.

Dr Morgan smiled and said, kindly, “Well, we’ll just have to have a look and see, won’t we.”

It was getting too much for the sergeant; he loosened his tie and mopped his brow with a sopping cotton handkerchief, “It’s so friggin’ hot in here... even with them windows open... Jeeesus, I can’t get a breath, and I’ve still got that stench from the bog in me nosterls...” he smelled the sleeves of his shirt “I think it’s got into me clothes. Ugh!”

“Ack, catch a grip, ye big girl’s blouse,” grunted Scanlon, “you’ve been livin’ with that stench for years, you must be used to it by now.”

“I never smelt anythin’ like the reek that came from that excavation. That was strong enough to make a skunk run for cover!” Marchant said, a little too loudly.

Scanlon nudged him, “Ssshhh -- the auld doctor is talkin’!”

Examining her unblinking, dazzling grey eyes, Dr Morgan asked Charlie, “And you say she just dropped and started twitching?”

Charlie lit up a cigarette and explained, “Aye -- she lost her temper, see, and let-out this almighty shriek like you wouldn't believe --”

Everyone but the doctor nodded and said in unison, “heard it.”

“-- and the next thing I know is the trees start shakin’ and (he pointed up) –- this bloody huge branch falls down and misses me (he made a tiny space between his thumb and forefinger) by that much!! Bleedin’ miracle I wasn't cleaved-in-half!” He shook his head, took a long drag and blew it out, sending spiralling clouds of bluish smoke into the shafts of sunshine.

“She can do that...?” the sergeant gasped.

Charlie shrugged, “Nobody knows what she can do, least of all her.”

Scanlon arched an eyebrow, narrowed an eye and nodded toward the door, “Ahem, maybe you should smoke that out in the corridor, Charlie?”

“With pleasure,” said Charlie, sneering, but just as he went to walk away, “Excuse me -- but when did she get this?” asked the doctor, pointedly, turning Oona’s head to the side. Charlie stopped in his tracks, “What?” The doctor pulled back her hair to reveal the purplish weal on her cheek.

“Looks like somebody’s hit her a quare slap,” the sergeant said, looking at the doughty security man.

Charlie protested his innocence, “Hey, hey, hey, now, now! I wouldn't hit a woman –- and look -– it’s not fresh!”

“That’s true,” said Dr Morgan, “it’s at least a day old.”

“Nevin’s been hitting her!” said Scanlon, almost smiling; he had a distraction and exploited it immediately, “Is it any wonder she’s fainting? She’s probably got a concussion, poor girl.”

Marchant covered his eyes in shame, “Ah, Jaysus, no...”

“It don’t surprise me none. If oi’m honest, oi can ‘ardly blame ‘im,” said Mrs Sparkes, with a dispassionate what-can-you-do shrug of the shoulders, “she’s as thick as shit ‘n she can’t cook. It’s enough to drive anybody round the twist.”

Scanlon glared at Marchant and said, “Where is that big shithead now?”

Slowly losing the will to live, the sergeant stepped back, took off his cap and wiped his brow with the back of his hand, “I left him ’n his partner to keep an eye on things down at the bog...” The pang of regret quickly turned to rage, “I’ll feckin’ kill the fecker!”

“AHEM!” Dr Morgan cleared his throat to take back the room, “A slap wouldn't cause a condition the like of this. I’d say this is a psychological rather than a physiological condition.” He turned to Mrs Sparkes, “In other words, something has upset her to such an extent that she’s put herself in a trance.”

Scanlon stooped and studied Oona’s glassy-eyes, “Pretendin’ is she...?”

Outraged, Ella Sparkes put her hands on her hips and shouted, “C’mon, get up ye lazy bitch!”

The doctor winced and put out his hands to quiet her down and put her right, “No, no – she’s had some-sort-of an episode. It could be stress-related. She’ll have to see a psychiatrist, and if there’s no joy there, we’ll have to send her for an MRI scan.”

Mrs Sparkes’ ears pricked up under her ginger wig; she didn’t trust modern technology and interjected every time she heard something she didn’t understand, “Emmer Eye-Scan? What’s that?”

While the doctor explained the rudiments of magnetic-resonance imaging, Scanlon grabbed the sergeant by the lapels and dragged him into the corridor, “Get that bastard Nevin up here ASAP! I want that string-o’-piss to take her home ‘n keep her there. She’s his responsibility!”

Marchant had a perturbing thought, “But what about ‘Is Nibs? What about Herbie?! Should I phone ‘em...?”  

Scanlon tightened his grip, pulled him close and whisper-shouted into his face, “The old man ‘n Herbie must NEVER find out about this or we’ll all suffer!” There was a gentle hubbub coming from the room. He shoved the sergeant away and told him to get on with it, then smiled broadly, went back in and clapped his hands, “Is that us? Are we done?”

Dr Morgan wasn't happy, “Look here, I’ll have to report this. If her husband’s been knocking her around -- a policeman, by God -- it’s my duty to inform the relevant authority.”

“Doctor, you know the Supplicants are protected by the laws on religious tolerance and are entitled to practise their own form of worship,” the groundskeeper reminded him in his most gracious tone of voice, “and they have different laws, different customs. If they want to treat her with toadstool-juice and frog stew, they’re perfectly within their legal rights to do so -– as long as it doesn’t endanger life -- and as you can see, aside from a wee turn, she’s perfectly healthy!” He turned, winked and whispered in the doctor’s ear, “Leave it with me – I’ll see that she gets what she needs...” and slipped him an extra £20. As Charlie escorted him off the premises, Scanlon took Mrs Sparkes to one side and had a quiet word.

“She’s dangerous now, Ella. What Charlie says is true. I saw the branch myself – it was ripped from a dead tree alright – the join was splintered and ragged. And today, right-around-the-time of her little temper-tantrum, the cutlery on the dish rack started tinklin’, the pots ‘n’ pans rattled on their hooks. Remember? You thought it was an earthquake...”

No sooner had those words parted his lips, than her niece’s eyelids flickered, her dark lashes fluttered like the wings of tiny rooks...

“It looks like she’s wakening...”

[she was awake the entire time. She couldn't hear their voices, just murmurs; she saw their blurred faces through a kaleidoscope of illuminated colours. 

Now the room was getting brighter -- everything faded into the background until there was silence and shining white... nothing but silence and shining white...

The light was pouring in from the mirror above a wash-hand-basin at the back of the room. She watched the little girl with the lumpy head, luminous and translucent, climb out of it and come to the foot of the bed.]

The little ghost girl looked down on Oona with a pitying-frown.

The other voice explained

< I’m so sorry about shutting you down like this, but you needed reining in, and since your mentor is proving so indispensable, I’m afraid I have no further use for you at this point in time.

This operation is on hiatus...>

Ni was making her way through the woods toward the site. It was dusk and the darkening skies made it difficult to negotiate what could be loosely described as the pathway to the bog. She’d just fought her way through a particularly dense hawthorn bush, when the voice that sounded like nothing on earth crackled in her head:

<How does it feel to be free?>

She stopped. Oh God. How bad is she?

<She’ll live. But she is temporarily telepathically-impaired. >

So, is that it? She’s out of my life?

<For now.>

So... What do you get out of all this?

<I may call in a favour at a later date.>

That sounded ominous. She paused before repeating her previous enquiry, Is that you Barry? Or am I talking to your ‘demon’? What’s your part in all this?

...........................

Hello...?

<Goodbye, Niamh. It’s been a pleasure working with -->

At that very moment, at SCICI: “... happy Barry? Well, you’ve got what you wanted. Your friend Somerville has seen to that!” chimed Rossington, hands on his knees, mock-smiling, yapping like an overbearing schoolmistress, “We’re taking away all the mirrors, wires, gadgets and spotlights and we’re going to put you in one of the older rooms: drab, dreary, padded walls, tiny windows, a plain white ceiling to stare up at all day. See how you like that, eh?!”

Matron and Matthew Cromarty were disconnecting the electrodes from Barry’s head while a pair of technicians on stepladders dismantled the mirrors, all listening as Rossington ranted at the insensible wretch on the bed, “But don’t worry -- I haven’t given up on you just yet,” he took out a large roll of print-out paper, unfurled it and pointed to various highlighted sections on a wave line, “I’ve had a look at your readings  -- dates and times -- and a very interesting pattern emerges: for instance, when Niamh nearly crashed the car -- when Oona had a fit,” he indicated a row of numbers in the highlighted section: “increased brain activity! This proves your mind is active! What do you say to that?!”

Matron put a hand on his arm, “James, c’mon now, you’re gettin’ upset, you haven’t slept for days...”

“Get your fucking paws off me, you damn silly bitch,” he said, calmly. He made sure the technicians were out of earshot and took the pair to one and berated them, “Matt Cromarty (sniff), phew -- stinking of liquor as usual, and Matron Stranks, Ireland’s answer to Nurse Ratched.” He pointed at the CCTV camera above the door, “Do you have any idea what would happen if Somerville got hold of those tapes?” he looked at Cromarty, “For instance, I have video of you pinching his genitals!”

“I was just testin’ his reflexes!”

“What? Like this?” Rossington slapped him full in the face with an almighty smack.

The technicians stopped unscrewing and gawped.

Once he’d recovered from the shock, Cromarty burst into tears. Matron put her arms around him and let him sob into her pillowy bosom while Rossington rounded on her, “and as for you, you gormless old trout -- I have footage of you lighting candles and saying prayers over him!”

“I spoke to my priest and he told me to do it because...” she began to protest.

Rossington wagged his finger to cut her off, stooped and stared into her eyes, “... because you think it’ll protect you from the demon from McKee’s in Soul, huh? I warned you about talking to clergymen, didn’t I?!” He took her crucifix in his hand and tore it off, “And you of all people should know that the wearing of jewellery is not permitted in the institute!!” and plonked the trinket in the palm of her hand.

“Ask Peter Sinclair what he believes,” Cromarty cried into matron’s chest, referring to Rossington’s ‘flatmate’.

It was a cheap shot and the good doctor dearly wanted to lash out again, but the technicians were watching, so he made do with giving Cromarty the evil eye. “This is your last warning, shithead. Now get out of my sight.”

As they exited, two burly orderlies entered. They picked up the long, frail shape of Barry McKee and carefully deposited him onto a gurney; as they passed, Rossington looked into Barry’s unblinking eyes and said, “Life is about to get very boring for you, Barry.....”

Back in his office, he walked straight to his desk, turned on the reading lamp and lifted the phone with the intention of calling the flat to talk to Peter, but before he could dial the number, someone in the darkness at the back of the room said, “So, your li’l experiment’s gone tits-up, ‘as it, Jimbo?”

“Jeez! Herb? I thought you were in France...?” said Rossington, gulping, putting down the receiver.

There was Herbie, in full chauffeur uniform, driving-gloves-and-all, leaning on the bust of St Cedric at the back of the room, “I came back to check-up on fings,” he said, shaking his head regretfully. “I hear Oona’s put herself in a trance cuz the boyo you chose to be ‘er ‘usband ‘as been knockin’ ‘er abaht, ‘n the Fitzgerald gal you brought in to 'elp ‘er is due to leave the cahntry in a coupla weeks. All this after you wuz told to leave ‘er alone? It’s a right-old balls-up, innit Jimbo?”

Rossington backed up slightly so that he was touching the handle of the top drawer of the desk.

“Lookin’ fer this?” Herbie took Rossington’s beloved Magnum .357 from his belt; it glinted in the half-light as the big chauffeur advanced on his prey, “You've cost us a blahdy packet, Jim, and for what -- a psycho we can’t control?!”

“Oh shit, no, Herb...” The good doctor put up his hands and backed up toward the door, “I warned you -– I told you Oona is uncontrollable -– I told you she’s a sociopath -- she was driving Miss Fitzgerald crazy! She almost killed her!” His back hit the door with a thud -- Herbie grabbed him by the tie and growled into his face, “She wuz perfectly awright until you got yer fackin claws into ‘er!” He pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the ball of Rossington’s nose turning it into a porcine snout.

The good doctor kept his head steady and answered nervously, “She wasn't ‘alright’ -- she was locked in a room shut away from the world and she would've rotted in there if not for me! If you want to blame anyone -- blame Scanlon -– he’s the one who spread malicious rumours to get me taken off the case! He’s the one who’s plotting to get rid of her!”

Gorringe ran the muzzle along Rossington’s cheek and growled, “You can squeal all you like, Jimbo, but this time there’s no escaping yer fate.”

“Don’t do this, Herb. We go way back -- at least 20 years -- and I’ve always done my upmost -- I got Ollie off booze, I got Annelise off smack --”

“Ollie’s fallen off the wagon loadsa times since then and your ‘treatment’ nearly killed poor li’l Annelise! Not only that -- - you then proceeded to exploit ‘er!”

“Hardly! We wrote a book together! She made a lot of money and she’s fully recovered!”

Herbie pushed the muzzle hard into Rossington’s cheekbone, “That’s the reason the boss can never bring isself to pull the plug on ya. But the boss ain't the geezer ‘e used to be, see, ‘n ‘e leaves it to me to make all the Life or Deaf decisions.” He grabbed the good doctor’s tie, pulled him across the room, thrust him into his swivelling, leather throne and put the gun against his temple, “Now, sit still. This hasta look like suicide!”

Eyes squeezed-shut, Rossington begged for mercy in his native New Jersey accent, “Christ no, don’t do this!! Look, Scanlon is your guy -- he’s your loose cannon –- he’s always hated her...!”

There was a long pause, then he heard Gorringe say “We know.”

The muzzle was withdrawn, the pressure on his Adam’s-apple eased. He opened his eyes. Herbie was sitting on the edge of the desk, grinning, “That’s why yer off the ‘ook, for now,” he said, matter-of-factly, and in one deft movement spun the pistol around his finger like a six shooter, caught it by the barrel, ejected the magazine and put it in the breast pocket of his tunic, spun it again and handed the disarmed weapon to Rossington. “The boss ‘n’ me ‘ad a powwow ‘n you’re the lucky winner, Jimbo. Scanlon is indeed ‘a loose cannon’ and ‘e will be dealt wiv in doo course, but we ain’t pleased with yer work, so from now on you go back to doin’ yer normal business  an’ we leave Oona alone to get on wiv ‘er life. OK?”

Rossington took the gun with a trembling hand and carefully put it back in the drawer, “Whatever you say.”

Herbie nodded, “Good. Until we decide wot to do next, this operation is on hiatus...”

The Wetlands of Bogmire, Co. Kildare, in the grounds of Pagham House:

12:45am: The clouds had opened, and as the raindrops hissed through the trees and strafed the canvas of the little shelter, the amateur archaeologists, some holding lanterns, gathered around to see what they’d found. Paddy knelt by the tarp and shone his torch on the entwined skeletons, now carefully washed down, relatively mud-free and finally exposed to the air. Shaking his head with incredulity, he turned to Ni and held up her little sketch, “You were right on the money. 100%. Exactly where you said they’d be, in the same position; one an ancient adult male, the other a child with a fractured skull -- you got it exactly right,” he said, utterly awestruck.

Ni, holding a handkerchief dipped in perfume to her nose, answered efficiently and unemotionally, “This lends credence to the legend that an ‘ancient magus’ was placed in the bog and cursed so that his evil wouldn't spread after his demise,” she explained to Emil, who was still too busy crapping his pants to take it in, let alone adopt his usual casual, cooler-than-thou attitude. But instead of raising any objection about despoiling a scene of natural beauty, he asked, tremulously, “And... you just had a dream... what...?”

Paddy tried to coax her into a confession, “C’mon Ni, did someone tell you about this? Is there someone out there who knows something about this?”

“I just had a vision, that’s all I can tell you. I can’t explain it. It could've been a side effect of the drugs Rossington gave me, but for some reason I knew it was true,” she said, equivocally.

“Well, I’m flummoxed,” said Paddy, standing up, pulling down his hood and scratching his head, “The older mummy is perfectly preserved! It’ll take some time to date it, but I’m pretty sure it’s thousands of years old. I don’t know whether to feel elated or afraid!”

“It’s very... exciting,” said Emil, very uncomfortable in his own skin, not knowing how to behave.

Paddy made a face and said, “Is that all you have to say? This is a monumental find! I thought you’d be overjoyed?!” He looked from one to the other and twigged something was wrong, “Did you two have a row on the drive down?”

“Oh, a disagreement over something insignificant,” said Ni, glancing at Emil.

Emil swallowed hard, looked away and said nothing.

“What about the little girl?” she asked, sparing his blushes.

Paddy hunkered down again and examined the smaller, whiter skeleton closely and shook his head, “Well, we’ll have to identity her, poor thing. In my opinion, she was definitely killed in this century; at least 50 years ago, so there must be a record of her somewhere. The murderer or murderers could still be alive.”

It struck her like a thunderbolt. She put the handkerchief over her mouth to stifle her gasp and stepped back. This time it wasn't the smell that made her recoil.

This is the little girl in the Somerville kids’ bedroom. This is the little girl she saw in the mirrors. This is the little girl she saw at the edge of the woods. This is her. There were tresses of black hair still clinging to the skull and the remains of a little nightdress clinging to the skeleton, but Ni didn’t need to see the physical evidence, she knew in her heart it was true. But why did McKee/his demon want her found?

Meanwhile, “... the question is: how did she come to be resting in the other’s arms? 5000 years apart and they’re positioned like Madonna and Child? It doesn’t make sense,” said Paddy, looking to his colleague for an opinion, “What do you think, Emil? Ever seen anything like this?”

Still distracted by guilt and embarrassment, nevermind the potential explosiveness of the situation, Emil answered diffidently, “Umm... yeah... sure looks like murder to me...”

Piqued by his friend’s semi-detached attitude and his niece’s apparent lassitude, Paddy stood up and gruffly announced, “Sorry folks, but this place will be a crime scene for the foreseeable future. Until we get this mystery sorted out, this operation is on hiatus...”

The Ivy House, Downpatrick, Northern Ireland:

01:45am: Ogden Castle, the Lumb’s rotund butler -- counsel to the New Master of the house and newly-installed leader of the coven, Jamie Jameson Lumb -- crossed the tiled lobby and waddled up the hall to the drawing room. He’d called a house meeting, although there’ll only be two members present; Lady Beth was off to her ranch in Connecticut leaving them to sort out the ‘hocus-pocus shit’. The housemates and household staff were under lockdown and warned not to venture out of the estate ‘until the Barry McKee business has been sorted’. Puffing and panting, he knocked the door and entered. “C’mon, Oggy,” said Jamie, “what’s the news? I had to put off a meditation session for this!” This was true; he was dressed in a Persian kaftan and beaded slippers, his brow and shaved head daubed with ancient runes peculiar to the coven.

Puffing and wheezing, Castle took a seat and explained, “Sorry, sir, I was waitin’ for word from the Council, it takes ages now, what with the Psychosphere still out-of-commission.” He took a deep breath and told them, “Anyway, according to the lads in Namibia, there’s the slightest hint of violet in the sunset. He’s definitely not weakening. He’s getting energy from somewhere. There are also traces of him in the Mirror World.”

Guy ‘Goz’ Gosling, Jamie’s school friend, ex-band mate, former rock star and now a successful movie actor, was slumped across one of the leather armchairs. He was also shaven-headed and bare-footed, but in his case it was a fashion choice, like his black Bowie tee-shirt and tight-fitting leather trousers. He was sick and tired of the whole affair and desperately wanted to get back to Hollywood to resuscitate his acting career, “That’s it then. Go to SCICI and unplug him. How hard can it be?”

“You know how hard it can be, dickhead, he has to die a natural death,” snapped Jamie, shooting him a dirty look. “If we kill McKee the demon will just migrate to the nearest lifeform, I don’t need to tell you that. We have to tackle him while McKee’s still alive, and to do that, we need to get close, and Rossington has him locked up safe ‘n sound in a secure unit in a high-security prison. That’s how hard it can be.”

They were at an impasse. It was times like that Jamie dreaded. Making decisions that could drastically affect the coven. It was the only time he doubted his abilities. Castle read him, “You've nothing to fear, sir, it’s only a setback. We’ll get him.”

“There is another option we haven’t explored,” said Goz, sheepishly.

Jamie read his mind without the aid of telepathy, “No. Not him.”

“But he can travel in the Mirror World and he has the energy to cast spells, he could tackle him from the inside...?”

Castle and Jamie considered it for all of second and then gave him a firm, “No.”

“Master Bernard is more likely to make a deal with the demon than try to stop him,” said Castle.

“That’s if he hasn’t already!” said Jamie.

Goz threw up his hands in anger and despair, “Well, what other choice do we have?! We can’t get close enough to him to curse him! We can’t attack him in the Mirror World...?”

Jamie paced the floor in front of the fireplace and bemoaned their lot, “If only Carla wasn't resting. She’d get into SCICI and no one would bat an eyelid.”

Castle was quick to correct him, “Aye, she may be able to beguile a lot of people simultaneously, sir, but she can’t beguile security cameras. And besides, Rossington’s already met her [See Book One Part 9]; he knows she’s one of us.”

Jamie heaved a heavy sigh, “Then, what the hell are we going to do?”

The prospect of enlisting Bernie Pritchard to do the dirty work was looking inevitable until there was a knock on the door and Fordham the footman entered, excused himself and whispered something in Castle’s ear. The butler nodded and Fordham left.

“Well, Oggy, what is it?!” said Jamie, impatiently.

Castle explained that an archaeological dig in Kildare had unearthed the mummy of an evil magus and broken an ancient curse releasing a cloud of dark energy into the air, “It’s so virulent that it’s rendered the entire area unapproachable for psyches like us. And it would account for the sudden surge of dark power.”

“How come we didn’t know about this? An evil magus buried in a bog? An ancient curse? I don’t remember any of this being mentioned in history class,” said Goz, getting more irritated with each development.

“It must've happened before our ancestors came home to Ireland,” offered Castle, “the curse put on his earthly remains must've been strong enough to cover all trace of ‘im. They mustn’t’ve felt anything at all when they arrived or they’d’ve dealt with it...” Castle’s voice dropped as he realised something relevant to the conversation.

“What is it now, Oggy?” said Jamie, getting evermore anxious with every disclosure.

“I dunno, it could be nothin’.” Castle told them of a residence in the immediate vicinity of the bog; Pagham House. It was built to the same specifications as the Ivy House at around the same time, “The 8th Duke of Roxborough -- Thaddeus Ravenhill -- a one time friend of Sir Arnold’s [Jamie’s grandfather], commissioned it. They were as thick as thieves back in the day, but he wasn’t one of us. He tried everything, y’know, the usual hokum: satanic rituals, virgin sacrifice, that sorta bollocks. He was executed in 1795, but Sir Arnold had nuthin’ to do with ‘im by then. He was off his rocker on mind-bending drugs. Anyway, I think the bog is in the grounds of his estate.”

“You think he could have something to do with this?” asked Jamie.

“Seems unlikely. If he did know about it, he didn’t mention it to Sir Arnold. And if anyone could see through Roxborough it was Sir Arnold. Still, it’s a bit of a coincidence them finding the mummy on his land....” said Castle, pensively.

“How dangerous can this mummy be?” said Goz, confused, “I mean, he must've Ascended when he died? If he was a ghost we’d know about it by now.”

Jamie looked to Castle, “He has a point.”

Castle sighed with fatigue, “It’s not his Soul that matters, sir,” he said, mopping his neck with his handkerchief, “he musta been beholden to the demon; only a disciple would have access to that sorta dark power. And that energy never dies; it lives on in the body. In other words, he’s as dangerous dead as he was alive.” He offered them some consolation, “On the other hand, it could take years for the demon to access it, especially in an isolated, incapacitated body. McKee could die a natural death in that time, ‘n if that’s the case, the demon will die with him ‘n none of this will matter.” Castle took a deep breath, “In the meantime, the witches can keep an eye on things. They’re the only ones who can be around dark energy and only suffer minor effects. I’ll give ‘em a call on the auld crystal ball, I just hope they’re agreeable. They can be a fickle lot at the best of times.”

“I just thought of something,” said Jamie, in a troubled voice, “as the crow flies, it’s only around 80 miles from Odin’s Inn.”

“Shite, I forgot about that ...” said Castle, groaning, putting his head in his hands, “... will it ever end?”

Goz looked from one to the other, “’Odin’ Inn’?”

“It’s in Brodir, a deserted seaside town on the coast of Wicklow,” Jamie told him, “it’s where Calvert and the Lindsay woman live; they were the couple involved in the capture of McKee. Danielle’s Soul migrated to the woman during the encounter. They’re due to have a baby at some time in the near future.”

Goz was suddenly very interested and sat up, “Jeezus! Dani? Dani’s coming back?! How do you know for sure?”

“Witches,” said Castle, tapping his temples with his index fingers, “they’re never wrong.” [See Book One, Part 21]

“But if the demon gets wind of it while all this shit’s going down, she could be corrupted all over again,” said Jamie, shaking his head at the enormity of the task ahead.

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to work on a solution, sir,” Castle informed him with a regretful frown, “cos a few of us older ones are drained after the events of the last 6 months. We need to go down below ‘n get some rest or we’ll be no use to anybody.”

Jamie was aghast, “You’re hibernating?! For how long?”

“At least a couple of years. The witches can handle things while we’re away. As far as we’re concerned, this operation is on hiatus.”

2 years later...

ODIN’S INN, BRODIR, Co. Wicklow:

Sunday, May 2nd 1991

The bar resounded with a loud banging: there was someone at the front door. Zindy shouted from the kitchen, “There’s somebody at the front door, Mal!”

Malky looked over the banister and yelled back, “...And here’s me thinkin’ the woodworm were using heavy machinery!”

“I’m laughin’ but the door’s still bangin’!”

“I’m wasted in this place,” he muttered, put down his paintbrush and got to his feet, “Ooow, me back!”  He’d been sitting on the stairs varnishing the handrail for the past 90 minutes and his vertebrae had settled into an awkward curve; it took him a good few seconds to stretch-out the kink.

Meanwhile, in the parlour, Brooster was enjoying his Sunday; there was always plenty to watch: a film in the afternoon and documentaries on BBC2 at night -- unless there was sport on, in which case he’d watch Channel 4 or RTE2. He felt a little guilty lazing around like this, but after 10 years working as a RUC cadaver dog, going for runs every day at dawn and getting up at all hours to sniff for corpses in the dark, he felt he’d earned his rest. Anyway, today’s matinee featured an Alec Guinness double bill (one of Broo’s favourite actors) on BBC2: Kind Hearts and Coronets followed by Bridge over the River Kwai; just his cup of tea. He was enjoying Dennis Price committing the first murder when he heard a robust knock at the front door. It was very unusual to get visitors at this time of year, especially on a Sunday. He struggled to his feet, whimpering intermittently as his old bones ached with the effort, staggered across the floor and put an ear against the door.

The banging began again.

The kitchen door opened and Broo winced as Zindy’s voice shrieked in the hall, “Malky! The door!! I’m up to me tits in derv!” Evidently her pregnancy had not affected her vocal cords.

“RIGHT!” Malky shouted back, muttering under his breath about the abolition of slavery as he lurched through the bar and into the vestibule, and taking care not to touch the recently varnished woodwork, slid back the bolts and opened the door to a tall, sturdily-built man in his mid-to-late 60s looking up at him from the bottom step.

Clad in a neat, well-pressed, double-breasted grey uniform topped-off with a peaked cap and patent leather knee-boots, he had the bearing of an ex-military-man, and although it looked familiar, the uniform didn’t belong to any militia or security force Malky had ever seen. Then he looked across the cobbled concourse and saw an unoccupied Rolls Royce Silver Shadow parked at the kerb and realised that the caller was in fact a chauffeur. He wasn't a handsome man by any stretch, but he was tall and thick with wide shoulders; he had a long, horse-like face and teeth to match, but the tanned, heavily-lined and ruggedly earnest features lent him a certain charisma, like a US army general, or a well-travelled bouncer; tough but canny: someone who won’t take shit from anybody. And although Malky was certain he wasn't looking for a room, nevertheless he pointed out the inexpertly rendered homemade sign taped to the outside of the door that read Closed for Renovations, “Um, we’re not open til the autumn, pal. Try Arklow, 6 miles that-away.” He pointed due north.

The chauffeur looked at a piece of paper, then looked askance at the paint-spattered individual in the doorway, “Malcolm Calvert...?”

It has to be said, his misgivings weren’t without foundation: Malky was not a pretty sight at that particular moment -– unshaven with greying, uncombed collar-length hair, wearing Zindy’s ex-boyfriend’s outsized Hawkwind tee-shirt and emulsion caked M&S pyjama pants -- he looked like a hobo that’d really let himself go. “Who wants to know?” he asked, charily, well-used to uninvited attention -- usually pressmen waving cheque books or ghouls and geeks in search of the ‘truth’ about Barry McKee -- and normally, he would have slammed the door shut by now, but today he was intrigued: Who would send their chauffeur...?

The big driver took off his peaked cap revealing a dark, bog-brush silvery crew-cut (another tick in the ex-military column), put it under his left arm and moved-up-a-step so that he could shake Malky’s hand.

“Hello, Mr Calvert, ‘Erbert Gorringe. Pleased to meet ya,” he said, in a croaky, cockney rumble...

 To Be Continued Next Month in Ha! Ha! said the Clown

#spindlefreck #fantasy #witchcraft #witches #psychics #telepathy #demon #irish fiction #ghosts #horror #blackcomedy #mysticism #mystics #dreams #fantasy horror

[legrandepapillon]

Hush, You Foolish Man (dollmads)

Summary: James alters the course of history, but he can’t say his wife is very happy about it. Prompt: “Take it easy. I wouldn’t want you to tear your stitches again.” Author’s Notes: is… this my first historical setting fic on this collection…… it took me fifty ficlets to get here

i’m trash

In the long run, James would look back and wonder why the hell he jumped in front of a bullet meant for the man that for years, he’d come to loathe. He’d curse himself to heaven, hell and purgatory for getting involved in the childish spat between Burr and Hamilton, for allowing Alexander ‘Can’t-Be-Quiet-For-His-Own-Good’ Hamilton the reprieve of another moment of his slanderous and scandalous life here on this God-given Earth. He’d be angry with himself for intervening with history. For foolishly taking himself away from his wife, and child.

Or at least, he would if he had the glorious fortune to live to see the day that he recovered from this horror show.

When Burr had arrived on his doorstep a month prior, angry tears welling in dark eyes and fury coating the words on his tongue, James had been genuinely surprised. Well, he’d been taken aback at first but once he realized that the rage emanating from the other man was not directed at him, it had turned into surprise. Given how poorly the election had gone for him, and how cruel Thomas had been to the man afterward, Madison hadn’t expected to hear from Aaron Burr ever again in his lifetime. At least not directly. And certainly not so late in the evening.

But he quickly realized that the reason his old friend and now political rival had arrived on the doorstep of his home wasn’t for a social call nor was it for an argument, but for a far more pressing matter—a grave one, in fact. Aaron and Alexander would be having a duel at Weehawken, and Burr wanted James to attend as his second.

First, he’d tried to talk Aaron down from it—”Duel’s are dumb and immature, and Theodosia needs her father, sir.”—but all of that had only fueled the rage that the new Vice President was struggling to contain within himself. It ignited a passion that James had only seen inside Aaron once before—when he’d run for President—, a scary fire that burned behind his eyes and elevated his voice to levels Madison hadn’t thought he was capable of reaching. And honestly, by the time Burr had finished ranting and raving about how Hamilton had been in the way of his every attempt at greatness, about how Hamilton was entitled to this or disrespectful about that… Madison was tired of arguing. It became clear that there was no talking his once-friend down from this.

So, then he’d contemplated saying no the absurd request. After all, bearing witness to a duel was quickly becoming illegal—and even in places where it wasn’t already, it was greatly frowned upon. Not only would attending and being the witness to a man’s potential murder be horrendously stupid in general, but it’d be social suicide—which means it’d be more stupid for Madison, who had plans to one day be the next President of the United States. No one would dare associate with him if they found out he participated, and the last thing he needed was to make life any harder on Dolley.

But it had seemed like Aaron wasn’t one to take no for answer, anymore. And if he was being honest, James had always enjoyed a bit of old-fashioned gossip. There was a good chance that neither of them would shoot, and he could be home before breakfast to tell Dolley all about how over-dramatic the two of them had been.

He’d accepted. Foolishly.

In his defense, he thought that by the time the two men got a look at each other, they’d call the duel off. They’d been friends, afterall—Aaron had been one of the first people Alexander had met when he arrived in America. He’d attended his wedding, they were fellow soldiers. They both had known each other for thirty or more so years, which was why James didn’t believe for a second they had the capability of shooting each other.

He could tell as they rowed across the Hudson, could tell by the anxiety and turmoil in Aaron’s face, that he didn’t want to kill Alexander. They had all joked about it before—especially Thomas, who sometimes was a little obsessive in his comments—but Burr wasn’t a murderer. No matter how much of a nuisance this man was. He was simply too prideful to allow the Hamilton to continue his libel unchecked. And of course, Madison couldn’t really blame him for that—no matter how infantile he thought the two of them were being. Being told that one had no opinions, no morals, no viewpoints… that must’ve stung, especially when it was done so publically. He isn’t sure himself how he would’ve reacted to such a humiliation.

Certainly not with a duel, though, that was for sure.

When they dock at the banks and disembark from the boat, James can see Burr softening a bit. When they approach Hamilton and his crew and Pendleton passes one of the guns to James, he can feel the tension loosen—if only for a second. Hamilton seems distracted, as he looks out over the sunrise and plays with the trigger of the gun.

I’ll be home before Dolley wakes, James thinks to himself blandly, placing the gun in Aaron’s hands before returning to join Pendleton to discuss the matter. He isn’t made nervous about the duel actually happening until this moment—the moment where he presumes the entire affair will be called off.

He and Pendleton meet between where the two opposing men stand, and when Madison asks for a simple apology from Hamilton, he expects Pendleton to agree. He expects the man to concede, admit that this entire affair was overdrawn and foolish and the two of them should return home to their families. I’ll be home before Dolley awakes, he thinks again, a confident air around him.

Instead, Nathaniel nervously fiddles with the sleeves of his coat as he says, “I’m… I’m not sure Mr. Hamilton is willing to agree to that.”

James’ stomach drops. He opens his mouth to protest, to insist to this man that of course, Hamilton should be agreeing to apologize. What, does the man have a death wish? he thinks bitterly, eyeing the grey-haired figure over the shoulder of Pendleton. He knows that Alexander had been challenged to—and had challenged men to—duels before, but he couldn’t possibly have such arrogance about him to think he was bulletproof. This was not a political debate, this was not a cabinet meeting. Someone could—and would—die. No one’s ego was enough to save their life from a bullet shot by vengeance.

Looking over his own shoulder to Burr, he finds that his gaze has hardened. He’s glaring daggers into Alexander, slowly loading the bullet into his gun. This is no longer, to James, a matter of childish ego between frenemies. He realizes, staring at his old friend, that this had quickly become an immediate matter of life and death.

“Well,” James says curtly, knots of anxiety tying themselves in his stomach. Suddenly, he finds himself on the wrong side of history, staring down at his friend that was now planning to murder his political rival... Nerves prickle just beneath his flesh, and the crisp morning air is suddenly far too cool—everything inside of him screams that something is not right, something is not right. Do something to stop this, he screams at himself. Stop this, at once! “Then I suppose, there is nothing that can be done.”

There is nothing that can be done, he assures himself, though something in him is not satisfied with that outcome.

Nathaniel nods, shakes Madison’s hand, and turns away—back towards Hamilton, to whisper something in his ear. The man’s eyes find James, then they float over to Aaron, and then they flutter shut for several long moments. In that time, there is nothing in the air but the sound of birds chirping and the river water pattering along—almost as though the world is giving a respectful moment of silence to the two men laid bare before it. Then Alexander takes a deep inhale and gives a nod, turning on his heel.

Burr turns as well.

They count.

One…

This isn’t right, James mind screams as he watches their boots crunch the leaves on the ground. Nathaniel warns him to turn around for deniability, but he can’t will his body to do so—he’s frozen in anxiety, anticipation. Someone could die, right this very moment, and he can’t tear his eyes away from the inevitable.

Four…

Do something! Stop this at once!

Six…

This is foolish!

Ten…

Someone is going to die!

For some odd reason, that thought is the one that spurs his feet forward. He’s already moved towards the line of fire when Burr has turned, pistol pointed directly at Hamilton’s chest and finger on the trigger. A sense of urgency blanketing him, James half-stumbles, half-runs in front of the gun just as Hamilton raises his own weapon in the air. The action of concession is too late, however, because Aaron has already pulled his finger back against the trigger and fired.

He distinctly hears both Hamilton and Burr simultaneously shout ‘No!’ and a ringing in his ears from the gunshot. Pain sears through his stomach, spreading out to bloom a blood-red flower against the creme cloth of his coat. His eyes can’t focus on just any one thing, but he distinctly catches a glimpse of the regret on Aaron’s face before his eyes flutter closed from the blood loss.

They open again at home, and his nose is filled with the smell of pork cooking and fresh laundry. James grunts in confusion, attempting to sit up from what must’ve been a bad dream. He is made distinctly aware of the fact that it was indeed not a bad dream by the tearing pain that spreads through him again—exploding from the center of his stomach and rippling outwards. Giving a cry of pain, he nearly collapses back against the sheets but is caught by gentle hands.

“Stop!” a soft, familiar voice says. James looks up to find his wife’s french manicured hands on his chest, easing him back down against the clusters of pillows. He frowns just slightly at the design—she hadn’t had it before he left, which meant Thomas must’ve sent her more of those French fashion magazines. How long was I out for? he wonders curiously.

There is worry crinkling the corners of her dark eyes, and she smoothes back the sweaty curls of James’ dark hair—a comforting action for the both of them—as she speaks. “Take it easy! I wouldn’t want you to tear your stitches again. It was quite the hassle the first time it happened, I think you’ve ruined a set of sheets… or two.”

Wincing at how it scratches at his throat when he does so, James mutters, “I was shot.”

“Yes. Stupidly, I might add. You told me you were going to a meeting,” she says, pointedly avoiding looking him in the face—probably afraid she’d be unable to school her expression out of anger and hurt. Instead, she peels back the covers of their bedsheets and tuts her tongue at what she finds—his quick action had caused blood to begin spread through his bandages, soaking the perfectly white cloths and his shirt a wine red. “I’ll have to change these.”

“It was a meeting,” he says defensively, watching as she rises from her spot at his side to open a nearby cupboard. A cupboard that hadn’t been there before either—stacked neatly with tonics, bandages, alcohols, and medicines. He can’t help but notice how frazzled she looks as she does this—her usually well-styled hair falls limply over her shoulders, and she doesn’t wear any of the grande dresses that he’d become accustomed to seeing her in. Instead, she wears a simple frock—one that a milkmaid might wear to work the cows. It’s obvious that she has not left the home they share together—Dolley had never been known to let the public see her this way.

“Do you take me for an idiot, my love?” she asks flatly, filling a wicker basket with bandages, towels, and antiseptics before joining him again at his bedside. She sets the basket of materials down and begins the messy task of changing his bandages.

He winces, this time from the guilt. “Dolley, I—”

“Hush, you foolish man,” she says, peeling back the cloths. Looking down, James grimaces at the wound. Dark puckered flesh around a carefully stitched together hole in his stomach, red and swollen from irritation. Blood oozes and gushes from the sides—probably from where he’d torn the stitches in his abrupt movement. Dolley sighs, and he doesn’t say anything when he notices her swipe at tears on her face. “We can argue about how stupid and callous that was later. Rest more. Are you hungry?”

“How long was I out for?” he asks groggily, waving his hand in dismissal at the offer. Dolley hums a faint tune underneath her breath, peeling the bandages the rest of the way from his clammy skin and tossing them onto the rug on the floor.

“A week and a half,” she says, after a moment. Taking a cloth, she pours a bit of the alcohol onto it and begins to clean up the blood that had begun to dribble from the wound. James winces at the faint burning that comes when she swipes around the gunshot wound, gives a small hiss of pain. Despite the scowl gracing her lips, she lets up on the pressure. “I thought you were going to die. Everyone did. Hamilton, Burr, those idiots they… they send their sympathies and well wishes. I made stew.”

James gives a laugh, a dry one that hurts his abdomen, as he says, “You can’t cook.”

“Fine,” Dolley says, tossing aside the dirty cloth with the rest of his bandages. She’s quiet for a few moments as she finishes redressing his injury—noticeably pulling tighter than necessary—before she retrieves the still steaming bowl of stew waiting on the nightstand for him. “The servants made stew. Eat.”

“I’m… sorry, I didn’t tell you,” he interrupts, as she lifts a spoon from the bowl. Dolley’s hand falters, before lowering down. Sighing, she sets the bowl aside again and reaches up to brush away his hair.

“You should be,” Her voice is soft as she speaks, the edge slowly receding before dissipating completely. Dolley looks tired, he notices under the barely flickering lamplight. There are deep bags under his eyes and a striking sadness that breaks his heart. “You’re lucky that doctor that was with Hamilton was halfway competent, you could’ve gotten an infection or they could’ve shot you somewhere serious or… or—”

Dolley’s voice breaks and she cuts off, bring the sleeve of her dress up to press against her nose. Fat tears roll over the brim of her eyes and she swipes at them again—though unfortunately, this time, she misses the majority. Reaching up with weak hands, he presses it against the side of her face—thumb lightly rolling over the soft skin of her cheek. He thumbs away a stream of tears, a sad smile gracing his lips.

“My love, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Then why the hell would you jump in front of a loaded gun!” she snaps, abruptly pulling away from his touch. She picks up the bowl again, stirring the contents of the stew around with an urgency in her movements he had not seen before. The tears that fall over her face come with rapid succession now, pooling at her chin and making large droplets on the sheets. “... I could’ve lost you! You could’ve died! What were you thinking!? No, you obviously weren’t thinking!”

“Dolley, I’m sorry,” he stresses, attempting to still her hand. He wraps his hand around the one that holds the fork, stilling her movements. Then, with a weak smile, “I promise, I won’t do it again.”

She softens, looks back down at the bowl. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not trying to be,” he assures, with a whisper.

“I love you, James. I truly, truly do. You have made me the happiest woman on Earth. But damn, if you aren’t a fool sometimes.”

“You are getting a potty-mouth from that parrot of yours. I do say, she has a bad influence on you,” he chuckles, head falling back against the pillow. Though there are still tears in his eyes, his efforts are finally rewarded with a light chuckle and smile. Lifting the spoon again, this time with a purpose, she brings it to his lips.

“Oh, hush. Here.”

“Mm. Thank you. Dolley, I love you, too. And I promise, if there ever is another duel, I’ll stay far from the firing range.”

“There will be no other duel,” the woman says with finalcy—eyes narrowing and a daring in her tone. James chuckles again, wincing just slightly and shifting in his sheets to become more comfortable.

“Are you sure? Hamilton is still alive, isn’t he?”

“James,” she says sternly, warning in her eyes and tone. He smiles as she readies another spoonful of the stew for him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Author’s Notes: this isn’t… particularly fluffy or angsty. but it's my first dollmads fic so with practice I will get better hopefully

#my writing #writing #otp #ficlet #one shot #fanfiction #drabble #hamilton fanfiction #hamilton #an idealism #boy do i have a queue for you #dolley madison #james madison #dolley madison x james madison #dolley madison/james madison #dollmads #kind of hurt/comfort #whump #alternate history #canon era #alternate duel ending

[kylorenpunk]

Do them all. Suffer as I did 😂

Bitch I told you this was our friendship. We force each other to answer all the questions. 

1. selfie

Well… I wasn’t dubbed Selfie Queen for nothing… 

This one is interesting bc I have zero makeup on. The most recent ones are too blurry. A lot of my fav selfies are full faces of makeup tho. 

2. what would you name your future kids?

I feel like that’s a decision for both parents but I really like the names Felicity, Isabella and Dimitri. Yes, all of them are names from various franchises I enjoyed throughout the years. Be glad I’m out of my phase where I thought Vladimir was a good name. 

3. do you miss anyone?

I miss all my friends I don’t get to see frequently. Love all of y’all and hope y’all are doing well in life! 

4. what are you looking forward to?

Fucking graduating. Jesus Christ it’s taken me five damn years. 

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?

From my club it’s Chris, Yara and Josephine. Also my entire friend group from back home. Honestly I love my friends so much. 

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?

I feel like every situation is different so that’s a tough question to answer. 

7. what was your life like last year?

I honestly don’t remember much from December of last year. It was a good time though. 

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?

I’m an emotional bitch. I’ll cry over anything. I cried over fucking Mulan the other day. 

9. who did you last see in person?

My parents and brother. Earlier in the day my club. 

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?

I’m shit at it. My face gives away everything. The other day my professor was going into her inspiration porn narrative and I just gave her a cold dead look the entire time. 

11. are you listening to music right now?

No but I have the Hamilton soundtrack stuck in my head right now since that’s what I was last listening to. If you haven’t heard it I highly suggest it. Man I wanna see it so badly. 

12. what is something you want right now?

Sleep but I’m trying not to throw off my sleep schedule right now and am waiting a bit before going to bed. I only got three hours of sleep last night so that’s fun. 

13. how do you feel right now?

Kinda tired. Relieved that I got two service projects in a row done today. It’s been a long weekend. 

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?

My friend Sebastian hugged me when I dropped him off. I guess that counts. 

15. personality description

I’m a makeup loving nerd who enjoys sitting in pajamas watching anime and superheros as much as she enjoys swatching EVERY lipstick in Sephora. According to my friends I can’t go 5 seconds without mentioning how old I feel and my love for Dungeons and Dragons. I’m also an asshole. (Wow this sounds like a 12 year old writing this)

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?

Yeah tons of times. It’s bitten me in the ass. Oh well live and learn I guess? 

17. opinion on insecurities.

Everyone has them? If they say they don’t then they are lying. Mine is mainly related to my appearance or how I speak. 

18. do you miss how thing were a year ago?

I miss how things were in the beginning of this year. It started off strong then kinda turned into a shit show. 

19. have you ever been to New York?

No but it’s my top thing on my bucket list. My friends and I are highly considering a trip. 

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?

Of all time: Get Low by Lil Jon 

Currently: “Told You So” by Little Mix (If you haven’t heard their new album I highly suggest it if you love girl groups that preach women empowerment) 

21. age and birthday?

22 - June 21st (She’s a Cancer)

22. description of crush.

I don’t have a hardcore crush right now. More like 5 second crushes that are over the second they do something I don’t like. 

Edit: Currently “celebrity?” crush is Nathan Sharp. I am seriously considering dropping $55 to see him at a convention this month. 

23. fear(s)

Heights, something terrible happening to my loved ones, wild snakes, and the usual common anxiety fears 

24. height

Five foot three inches. I’m short. Yes I know it’s not that short but tall people like to put me in the short category anyway. 

25. role model

My mom’s coworker who was my internship supervisor. She has a doctorate’s in what I want to do and is amazing at what she does. The amount of knowledge and experience that women has is incredible. She is also extremely funny and knows how to teach with a sense of humor which I appreciate. 

26. idol(s)

Celebrity idols? I don’t really idolize celebrities bc humans are humans and have flaws. 

27. things i hate

Immaturity, intolerance of differences, demeaning slurs, The Last Jedi, and the new Fantastic Beasts movie 

28. i’ll love you if…

Play with my hair, are kind to my friends and family, share common interests, show an interest in what I have to say, basically respect me and those close to me and we’re good 

29. favourite film(s)

Hairspray, High School Musical, The Greatest Showman, Stardust, The Harry Potter series, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy

30. favourite tv show(s)

Jane the Virgin, Naruto (fuck off I hate myself too ok), the first three seasons of Arrow before it turned to shit

31. 3 random facts

I’m not artistically talented but I genuinely enjoy makeup and creating looks

I have a nonverbal brother with autism and he’s my favorite person ever

I completely programmed my brother’s communication device by myself 

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?

Now my friends are mainly girls but when I lived in Tampa 90% of my friends over there were guys (Hi Mason). I’m going to say that’s bc of us all playing video games in the Delta lounge (RIP Dirty D). But yeah now it’s mainly girls and 80% of my dude friends are gay. 

33. something you want to learn

Sign Language. Ice skating. Hairstyling. Fashion (I’m trying to be better about putting clothes together). Also I’m down to learn more about makeup and techniques 

34. most embarrassing moment

Either farting while doing an air guitar in front of my entire girl scout troop

or signing to my friend that I liked her friend at a party and his brother repeated what I had signed out loud in front of everyone

wait. No. When I F U C K E D  up in front a super hot guy while volunteering and then chose an 18 year old jock as my wingman. 18 year olds are dumbasses. Don’t use them as wingmen. Fuck you Khaled. 

35. favourite subject

In grade school I think it was English or History. It really all depended on the year. 

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?

VISIT NEW YORK 

Hike the Smokey Mountains 

Visit Europe 

37. favourite actor/actress

Chris Evans (especially when he is trying to fight orange president on twitter) 

Also Mark Hamill is perfect 

38. favourite comedian(s)

I don’t watch comedians often. I guess the Fluffy guy? 

39. favourite sport(s)

The only time I give a shit about sports is when my university is undefeated or playing my first university in football. Or the soccer world cup if it’s on. However I appreciate the skill it takes to do a sport. 

40. favourite memory

San Antonio. It was my first time traveling without family and it was the greatest time. It was such a cool city 

41. relationship status 

Single - I take my sweet ass time 

42. favourite book(s)

Eragon (No, I haven’t finished the entire series. No, I don’t want spoilers bc I will do it eventually.) 

43. favourite song ever

“Get Low” by Lil Jon 

“Look Through My Eyes” by Phil Collins 

44. age you get mistaken for

Last year I got mistaken twice in a row within an hour for a middle schooler. I was 21 at at that time. During my internship one of the parents asked me if I had any kids. I’m either mistaken as a parent or as a 13-15 year old. There is no in between.  

45. how you found out about your idol

N/A since I don’t have an idol

46. what my last text message says

“lmao it’s alright” to Joey but the previous one is more funny “thankfully no one threw up this time” in regards to my friend’s party last night

47. turn ons

Well I aint about to talk about my sex life so let’s go with personality 

Common interests such as superheros or anime, charismatic, easy to get along with, common goals in life, cares about their loved ones, has passion, and someone I can hold an intellectual conversation with 

48. turn offs

rudeness, immaturity, inattentiveness, bad tempers, superiority complex, not being genuine, judging others, treating people like objects, and general lack of care for others or themselves

49. where i want to be right now

Back in the smokey mountains in a cabin watching movies and anime

50. favourite picture of your idol

N/A 

51. starsign

She’s an emotional Cancer

52. something i’m talented at

Apparently I’m good with kids      Makeup too I guess? 

53. 5 things that make me happy

friends, family, nerdy shit, makeup and Kakashi

54. something thats worrying me at the moment

Some shit happened last night that has me worried for some friends but I’m sure they’ll figure it out 

55. tumblr friends

A shit ton of y’all I know IRL. I won’t tag y’all bc that’s annoying af 

Joey’s my only internet friend @earthschampion (answer my text bitch) 

56. favourite food(s)

pasta, empanadas, crab rangoons, taziki sauce 

57. favourite animal(s)

Meerkats and koala bears

58. description of my best friend

K @burnitstronger: realest damn friend you will ever have. Will tell you how it is and provide never ending love and support. Never understands my dumbass shenanigans but loves me anyway. Love you boo 

J : Will also tell you how it is and forces you to watch Naruto and ruin your damn life. Will happily go with you to eat junk food after class. Will fight anyone who wrongs you and is def still plotting revenge on all my ex’s. Stans Loona

M: Will scream at you in Leo in a frightening but loving way. Has the best damn fashion sense I have ever seen. Is the friend that comes by when I need her to and brings a shit ton of snacks and love (J does this as well).

59. why i joined tumblr

I was bored on fourth of July in 2012 and my friends kept telling me that this website would be fun. Also the avengers “fandom” from back then 

60. ask me anything you want

I would say I’m sorry Mason but I enjoy making all my friends suffer. Make sure to give him a follow bc he’s cool. @masonjar828

#ask #me #yikes this took a long ass time

[prodigyofprinxetoncollege]

For @xlittlelionhamiltonx // @heavnofhell

25th of July, 10:37 am

Angelica is looking good, despite everything.

Presidential.

The picture of her couldn’t have been taken more than ten hours ago, yet she sits behind that desk in the oval office like she’s done it a million times before.

“Angelica Schuyler was sworn in as Acting President.”

Alex sets down the bottle. He never had anything against Angelica, but seeing her like this, perfectly styled, perfectly composed, while Aaron might be dying under the hands of some surgeon right now, he can’t help but hate her.

24th of July, 6:27 pm

Alex is idly sipping Champagne, looking around the crowd. It’s not technically a fundraiser, but close enough. When Aaron became President, Theo had made it clear she wouldn’t be a First Lady that only smiled and stood by. She had started a program that was promoting the importance of education, was trying to even chances between different races and genders, and had basically been popular since day one. The American people loved their First Lady, and children were a topic that reached everyone.

Plus, Alex’s more cynical side adds, since she doesn’t have children herself, and given her track-record of being CEO of her own company and having more money than Aaron by far…it was kind of the thing the people wanted her to do. The thing that made her seem more like the good wife than the career woman. So she had done it, and was now even more popular for it. And she genuinely believed in the project, Alex knows that.

So today is the day where everyone can shake hands and pat shoulders because they are doing so much good. Alex doesn’t really like it, but he knows Aaron will be there, which is why he is here. The very moment Aaron and Theo enter, the whole crowd seems to notice. The event is open air, there’s only a small stage, yet the First Couple dominates this open space as easily as a small room.

Alex is never going to get tired of watching Aaron go through that little routine of his, smile at someone, shake their head, remember some obscure fact about them that makes it seem like he genuinely knows them and cares about every single person. It’s the kind of stuff Alex knew he wasn’t good at, the kind of stuff that got you elected President of the United States in a landslide, twice.

He might be staring at Aaron in awe, but he knows at least ten (supposedly) straight men that are doing the same right now.

As for Theo…she is wearing a light blue dress, the contrast to her dark skin nothing short of mesmerizing, her hair done up, make-up perfect. She looks like a goddess, just as attractive as Aaron, and equally as determined and dangerous.

For a second, really, just a second, Alex finds himself imagining him in her place, next to Aaron, laughing at his jokes, openly leaning into him, pressing kisses to his skin and being regarded as if it was normal. Shaking the same hands Aaron had shook just a moment ago, being charming-

No. No, those thoughts are the worst, he knows that. They lead nowhere, and they only leave him feeling empty. Apart from the fact that homophobia is rampant in this country, even if that weren’t the case Alex isn’t the right husband for a politician. (You always say that. As if you wouldn’t shut up about your opinions for the rest of your life if it meant to be by Aaron’s side.)

When it is his turn to shake Aaron’s hand, he feels ridiculously nervous. As if he hasn’t seen the man in completely different situations…

“Mr. Hamilton,” Aaron says, and his smile becomes just a little more sincere, a little broader. There is that spark in his eyes Alex knows so much, the thrill of them knowing something, sharing something, that nobody is even suspecting. “It’s always a pleasure,” Aaron adds, and it could be damning if taken out of context, if heard by the wrong ears. But Alex only chuckles.

“Mr. President. The pleasure is all mine.”

Alex also exchanges a few words with Theo, after that the evening is pretty much over for him. There are a few speeches, the first one by Theo, then a couple people that are involved in the project – and in the end, Aaron makes his way to the stage. Everyone becomes quiet.

Aaron isn’t saying anything special, just how much he loves Theo, values her support, that children deserve education and so on – it’s from one second to the next that something happens, and no one has seen it coming. Aaron least of all.

“I would also like to thank…I would like to…thank…”

Aaron looks down at his own chest, uncomprehending, when he starts swaying, his white shirt showing the first red stains. The next second, Secret Service is there, pulling him down, people are starting to scream, someone gets up and starts running, Secret Service is suddenly everywhere and Alex gets up but instead of running away he runs towards the stage, but Aaron and Theo are being led away – hell, they are carrying Aaron, he seems to be unconscious, when a Secret Service man starts pulling Alex back, and he knows he’s screaming, he’s trying to kick the guy, to hit him, but he doesn’t stand a chance.

In the end, the guy lets him go, doesn’t assume anything. Alex is a civilian, plus a former POW, his PTSD diagnosis went through the media, so everyone pretty much assumes his outbreak was caused by a flashback. Secret Service got the guy who shot Aaron, with what seemed to have been a rather small bullet.

But everyone is gone, Alex is the one who’s out of the loop, as usual, and when he gets home at midnight, he falls into his bed and sleeps till the news wake him.

25th of July, 2:47 pm

Alex doesn’t have any kind of information where Aaron is. The only thing he knows – like the country – is that he’s alive. Still alive.

He’s drunk. If this is it, if Aaron dies, just like this, no good-bye, with Angelica left to be President…Alex doesn’t know what he’d do.

Eliza calls eventually, asks him if he’s alright, if his PTSD is acting up. He lies that yes, that’s it, he’ll need a couple days.

She promises she’ll do whatever he needs.

25th of July, 4:24 pm

Alex is woken up by the doorbell. Why was he asleep at all?

Right, the alcohol.

It’s Herc. He stands in the door and just kinda shrugs one massive shoulder.

“Thought ya could need some company. I brought whiskey, but it seems like ya already had enough.”

Alex laughs, a little hysterical, but he lets him in.

“How’re ya holding up?”

Alex raises an eyebrow.

“What’s it look like?”

“You? You look like shit. Your flat? Nicer than I expected.”

Alex is happy Herc is here. They sit down in front of the TV, Alex falls asleep at some point. Herc doesn’t say anything, even though he practically falls into his lap.

Later Hercules makes them dinner, it’s nothing too fancy, but Alex hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, he appreciates it. There are still no other news than that Aaron is still alive but still being operated on. To Alex, it feels like the nation is holding its breath.

25th of July, 8:05 pm

Unexpectedly, it’s Theo who calls. She sounds tired, he’s sure she hasn’t slept a minute this night.

“He’s gonna make it. The surgery was a bitch but they did it, and from what they tell me, his chances are good. He’ll make it.”

He has to, Alex thinks.

“Thanks,” he replies. “Get some sleep, Theo.”

She hangs up without an answer. A few minutes later, Theo appears on TV. She doesn’t look like she sounded – she sounds stronger, better, confident. Reassuring. Just what the people (and Alex) need.

“Both me and the President have utter faith in Angelica Schuyer to lead this country while he is on the road of recovery.”

26th of July, 9:13 pm

Alex makes sure not to flinch when he enters Aaron’s room. He has to be the strong one now.

“Hey,” Aaron croaks, voice so weak, and Alex almost starts crying.

“Hey,” he gives back instead, voice sure and steady. “Looking pretty great for a man that almost died,” he teases, and Aaron manages a smile.

“I’m glad you came,” he whispers.

“I’d go anywhere for you,” Alex replies, serious this time. “You know that.”

And Aaron nods. “Yes. I know.”

27th of July, 1:52 am

Alex is still with Aaron. Aaron is asleep by now, but Theo told him he could stay the night if he wanted to, and of course he wants to. He’s been staring at the sleeping face of the man he loved for hours now.

So close.

So damn close.

But he is still here.

He takes out his little book, the one his therapist told him to start, and he skims through the pages, finds what he wrote during a dark night last month. Sometimes, Syria still plagues him.

I couldn’t seem to die, he’d written.

He goes back to the next free page, puts down the date, the time.

Writes, we can’t seem to die.

And that’s a good thing.

#hamburr #alexander hamilton #aaron burr #v; the room where it happens #xlittlelionhamiltonx

[thingscometogether]

‘ The Thing Itself ’

In college I was obsessed with the British rock band Arctic Monkeys. When I first saw them perform on Saturday Night Live in 2006 I was enchanted. My enchantment was, of course, fueled by a magnificent crush on the lead singer, Alex Turner. He was a cute, shaggy-haired boy my age with a British accent playing spikey rock music, clearly too cool to give an F about the audience he was playing to. Cupid’s arrow never struck a young heart so hard.

I listened to the band’s first album by downloading bootlegged versions of each song on Kazaa and burning my own CD. I found an EP unreleased in the US and burned that one too. I kept burning CDs until I got an iPod and then I burned out the battery in my iPod every week listening to their songs in endless loops on shuffle. Too many of my AIM ‘away’ messages were simply Turner’s cheeky lyrics copied and pasted as subtle middle fingers to a mainstream youth culture I never wanted to be a part of. I wasted lots of free time avoiding school work by reading every interview and watching every music video I could find. I went apeshit when the video for “Fluorescent Adolescent” came out and it featured a picture of Alex Turner as a boy. If he was cute at 20 years old, he was fucking adorable as a little kid.

My very first rock concert was my first Arctic Monkeys show. I stood ten feet from the stage in a now defunct rock club in Baltimore called Sonar and dreamily watched the boys course through an album’s worth of songs. To this day I swear Alex Turner made eye contact with me for about ten seconds and lost his train of thought while singing. I returned to my cousin’s apartment that night riding high on an energy and intensity I had never quite felt before.

The next morning as I drove home from Baltimore I got caught in a traffic jam, but I didn’t care. I had Arctic Monkeys blaring on the speakers of my mom’s Ford Windstar. The music was so loud the people next to me could hear it even though I had the windows rolled up. I was dancing and banging my head and singing at the top of my lungs -- I was having my own rock concert in the driver’s seat in the middle of I-70. But by the time the traffic jam loosened and I was on my way again, I was exhausted. I wanted to lie down and sleep. My brain was a rapid-firing mess of overcharged signals, and I needed to shut it off. I drove the rest of the way home in silence trying with effort to stay focused on the road.

It wasn’t until I was 28, well beyond my puppy crush years on Alex Turner and obsession with Arctic Monkeys, that I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Until that point I only thought I had Depression. My depressive symptoms were unmissable. I’d spend days at a time in bed, inert and dysfunctional, conspicuously absent from most of my life. Anybody, even those who didn’t know me well, could tell something was wrong.

Until a hospital psychiatrist explained it to me, bipolar had never been a consideration because I never knew what mania looked like. Even after I was given the diagnosis, it took me a long time to identify and recognize my particular manic symptoms. Most of them are disguised within expressions of creative things I already like: writing, visual art, fashion, music. 

I like to say mania isn’t ‘the thing itself.’ Mania is the roller coaster that comes along, sweeps up the ‘thing’ and whirls it about at full speed in loop-de-loops of high energy and intensity. I already like to write, but when mania comes along, instead of writing a blog post I think I’m going to write a Pulitzer-prize winning novel overnight. I like fashion and style, but when mania comes along I don’t pay attention to the fact that I’m spending most of my paycheck on a shopping spree with the money I need to use to pay my bills at the end of the week.

I’ve always loved music. It’s been a foundation of my life since I sang songs with Sesame Street as a toddler. I listen to all genres and in different languages. I’m constantly searching for new bands to love. But if I’m listening to music and mania hits, I’m rocketed into an echelon of intense bliss. My brain speeds up, my euphoria is visceral, I’m so in the moment the music feels as if it’s my entire being. I fly high on a wind of pure excitement and elation and good feeling ...and then I crash. I’m drained of all my energy. I feel physically tired, I can’t think, I usually have a headache. My brain can’t take anymore input and I need to sit in silence.

This doesn’t just happen at rock concerts. I’ve become manic listening to a Tchaikovsky symphony before. To Hamilton. To the Remember the Titans’ soundtrack. To Rufus Wainwright’s “Beautiful Child.” Even listening to a Doobie Brothers’ record in my room on low volume can jump start a turbine in my brain that I can’t slow down on my own. 

Now that I understand what my mania feels like, I know I have to pay attention to a few things in order to manage it. My physical environment is a big one, along with my mood, the time of day, what activity I’m doing. My gym playlist is full of loud horn sections, sassy Girl Power anthems, anything with a four-on-the-floor beat, and I let it all blare to full intensity. But if I’m planning on going to bed in the next few hours I stay away from high energy acts like St. Paul and the Broken Bones and put on some quiet Harry Nilsson or Tom Waits instead.

I refuse to allow my mania to take away my genuine joy in ‘the thing itself’ however. Mania didn’t create my love of music, and I won’t give it the power to erase that. I saw Arctic Monkeys live five times during my college years. (I entirely plan on being that old lady in the vintage band t-shirt at concerts when they’re still touring in their 70s à la Mick Jagger.) Even though I know I experienced mania at each concert, my mania isn’t the reason I had fun. I had fun because I was able to let loose, to liberate myself from the pressures of burgeoning adulthood by dancing and singing to loud rock songs for a few hours. I had fun because I connected to the part of genuine joy that lives within me, a part I can’t always reach when I’m mired in the sludge of depression.

I still daydream that one day Alex Turner and I will just happen to run into each other at the grocery store and we’ll lock eyes and he’ll remember me from that concert space in Baltimore all those years ago and from that moment on we will be bonded soulmates forever. You have to hold on to the dreams of your youth.

And if I could share some wise words with my 20-year-old self in an AIM away message, it would be these.

Don’t take it so personally You’re not the only one That time has got it in for, honey That’s where you’re wrong.

[volando-voy]

Hi- I've been trying to find out what actually happened in regards to supergirl, but I can only find memes. Could you explain what the current discourse™ is about? Or at least a good place to find the story itself?

there is no good place to find the whole story with any kind of accuracy. the fandom has now reached the point where the main tag feels like being trapped in an internet hell version of Lord of the Flies.

so here’s my (non-musical, but i could be persuaded otherwise) very much sarcastic and fed-up synopsis of the entire weekend:

the cast did a PR bit with MTV. they did this last year. jeremy was put on the spot to sing a recap of the season. this also happened last year. said recap was generally ridiculous, as improv’d talk-singing tends to be. the entire cast was laughing at it. not like “hee i’m gonna pretend i think this is funny,” but actually full-on laughing to the point of getting tears in their eyes.

mistake 1: in the course of said musical recap, jeremy emphasizes that kara and lena are just friends and only friends, in a way that was tactless and came across as mean to fans.

mistake 2: melissa joins in repeating this. mehcad does some goofy dance.

mistake 3: people who openly proclaim on this hellsite that they’re bad at understanding human behavior in real life start inventing assumptions about why the cast did these things, what their motivations were, and saying that certain people were exempt from this for reasons that don’t actually exist, because see recap paragraph 1 above.

mistake 4: tumblr agitators misrepresent what was said in the rest of the interview because there is already a giant confirmation bias at play here re: men

result 1: lots of people who trust the BNFs they follow are upset, as they should be, because they feel like the cast is making fun of them

result 2: the online pitchfork mob descends, part 1

result 3: lots of genuinely hurt people also tweet the cast, explaining why it is wrong to be dismissive of the idea that two same-gender friends might be attracted to each other

result 4: a select segment of fans is now actively watching every other piece of media pouring out of sdcc so they can compile more ‘evidence’ of their faves being “good” while everyone else is “trash”

mistake 5: jeremy makes an initial online response that is … more directed at the vitriol than at the people who are upset for honest reasons, and it is not received well because it’s a half-assed non-apology

result 5: people make an effort to explain and he actually gets the message

result 6: jeremy makes a second apology, and then a third, that make it obvious that he understands why his behavior was a problem

mistake 6: some 19-year-old with an ego that even donald trump would be jealous of emails melissa benoist’s representatives and says she’s speaking for “the entire lgbtq community” in this fandom, which is like that time in Hamilton when philip started a duel to ~defend the family honor~ even though nobody asked him to and then he got killed for his trouble, and that … went about as well as you might expect

result 7: the corner of fandom that has already crossed lines for the past 10 months up to and including a) stalking the cast’s family members; and b) making death threats; is now in an even greater frenzy of perceived injustice

result 8: the online pitchfork mob descends, part 2

mistake 7: other members of the cast, who are likely also tired of constantly being asked to post pictures of katie mcgrath or talk about katie mcgrath or give their opinions about Supercorp because hi they also play characters they’d like recognition for, foolishly respond to the deluge of comments by saying that they get that people are annoyed but maybe calm the fuck down

result 9: apparently now black men are racist and also everyone’s a homophobe

(kids, please go read the boy who cried wolf.)

mistake 8: nobody in charge of PR for this damn show took ten minutes to figure out what was going on and tell the cast to put out a simple apology before things got even more out of hand

result 10: this one horde of fans will now never be satisfied no matter what happens, but they still won’t go away

result 11: if anybody was wondering why fans are still pathologized and not taken seriously by either academia or the media… this whole fiasco provides a stellar example.

mistake 9: people who DON’T agree with the way select parts of fandom are carrying on aren’t being particularly vocal about it because lbr we all have better things to do with our lives

AND THAT’S WHAT YOU MISSED ON GLEE

#that's just supergirl #supergirl #fandom insanity #the discourse #sdcc 17 #Anonymous #asks

[thelittleredheadedmusician]

What is a Legacy?

The final day of Batgirl & Robin Week is Legacy! Mild Hamilton references but anything you need to know is pretty self explanatory. @super-batgirl here’s the last one! If you’d rather you can read it here on my ao3. Rating: G Words: 1,338 Gen

Babs whole heartedly blamed Harper. Jason and Stephanie may sing showtunes the most but Harper was the one who was the true theater nerd and would always get the other two into a new show. Now, after a year and a half, she’d finally gotten all of Gotham’s vigilantes obsessed with Hamilton. Babs could finally stop her tears from welling up when Eliza started singing in Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story – although she would still sometimes ugly cry at the part about the orphanage – and as such decided listening to the soundtrack while she monitored everyone’s patrols would make for an enjoyable night. When the night got longer though and the only activities included changing an ice cream truck’s tire and finding a lost dog Babs realized how bad an idea it was. As soon as Lin Manuel-Miranda said “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see” Babs lost it.

She tried, and did a pretty darn good job of it, to keep the others from hearing her cry over the comms. Dick noticed it though, he knew her too well. She heard the tone as it flashed across the screen that he had opened a private line. “Hey O? Is uh, is everything ok?” He asked softly.

Barbara grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, using it to dab at the corners of her eyes. “Yeah Nightwing. Wh-why’d you ask?”

She found his GPS pinging near St. Mary’s Park in Fort Clinton. With deft fingers and practiced precision, she pulled up the live footage of him perched on a water tower from a nearby security camera. He leaned back onto his hands, settling into his chosen seat. “Well I definitely recognized The World Was Wide Enough playing in the background and I thought that I heard some sniffling.”

“What? No. You’re just losing your touch Detective Wonder,” she scoffed.

On the screen Dick looked directly at the camera, directly at her. “Babs, you know you can be honest with me. What’s up?”

Babs pursed her lips and then worried her lower lip, watching Dick give her his “I’ll wait” look. She took a deep breath in through her nose and pushed it out in a rush through her mouth. “Ok,” she nodded even though he couldn’t see. “I might have started crying a little.”

“About what? What’s wrong?” he was genuinely concerned that she was upset. The stupid big-hearted turd.

“It’s so dumb. You’re going to think it’s so dumb,” Babs rubbed her temple, letting some dry humor creep into her voice.

He tilted his head and gave her a lopsided grin. “Oh really? Try me.”

“You know the part after Burr shoots Hamilton? And he’s about to actually get shot? Where Hamilton talks about having a legacy?”

“Yeah…?”

“Well it got me thinking about, well, about our legacies actually. How we’re lucky to be able to see them. How Jay and Cass and Steph and Damian managed to come back. I realized how lucky we are to be able to see how being Robin and Batgirl has helped them and Tim and all.”

“Babs,” Dick started slowly. “That’s… well crap. That’s some heavy stuff.” He scrubbed a gloved hand through his hair before dragging it back down his masked face. He gave a slight chuckle as he started to speak again. “Dammit. Now I feel like I’m gonna cry.”

Barbara began chuckling too and soon they were both laughing as the soundtrack started over. She scanned the screens quickly, ensuring that all of her charges were safe and in no need of divine intervention via Oracle’s deus ex machina. Steph and Damian were taking pictures of and with a mama duck and her babies down by the docks. Cass had found Tim and she and Harper were terrorizing him with some confiscated paintball guns in Robinson Park. Bruce was with Duke, chatting with her father on the roof of GCPD and both men were commenting on how peaceful the city was tonight. Kate and Luke were on their way to meet up with Basil and Jean-Paul who had found another lost pet. Jason was in the East End smirking at Selina as Helena laughed at Catwoman being sassed to high heaven.

She finally turned her attention back to Dick, waiting patiently on his water tower to continue their conversation. “It’s just… I never thought that there’d be another Batgirl or Robin after you and I. Now? I… I can’t imagine it otherwise. Cass and Steph, heck even Helena and Charlie if you want to count them, have gained so much from being Batgirl. And the boys and Steph? As Robin they were given chances to start over and they’ve all grown so much because of it.”

“I know. I never really thought I’d stop being Robin and at first I really wasn’t happy about Jason being Robin,” Dick gave a slow smile as he shook his head. “And even though I sometimes wish he’d never been Robin, because of what happened, I’m still glad he was. And Tim? Timmy boy. He’s too smart for his own good and he’s always just wanted to help. Robin gave him the ability to do that and even with all the loss he’s faced in the role I can only imagine what might have happened had he been just regular old Tim during it.”

Barbara smirked. “I’ve always told you that boy was one missed cup of coffee away from super villainy.”

Dick laughed as he nodded. “It really shouldn’t be funny cause it’s true,” he sighed, tilting his head back to look at the stars. “Steph was a good Robin and I honestly wish she would’ve had the chance to be a great one.”

“Well she’s currently a fantastic Batgirl so I’m going to keep her. No givesies backsies.” Barbara smiled, wide and genuine.

“I know better than to fight you on that,” he glanced back at the camera with a grin. “Damian, oh Damian,” Dick said with a sigh. “He was for sure a menace-”

“Ha, you can say that again.”

Dick rolled his eyes, turning it into an overexaggerated full-body motion. “As I was saying; he was a menace but was able to find a release for his anger and a new direction. I’m really proud of the kid.”

“Are you tearing up there Pixie Boots? Talking about your kiddo?”

“Hey, you got defensive about your kiddo so…”

Babs snorted as she nodded. “Ok, ok. Fair enough. But do you see what I’m saying? Cass needed a new direction too, something to use her training and to still keep that big heart of hers intact. She’s helped so many people and saved so many lives and she’s repaid the debt of that awful thing Cain made her do tenfold.”

“I love Cass. I honestly don’t know what my life would be without her and her cool head and subtle mischief,” Dick gave a soft smile. He truly did love his little sister and it showed in his facial expression, even with his blue eyes hidden.

“And Steph my firework. She’s got so much energy and just brightness that it’s startling sometimes. She puts everything she has into every single thing she does and I’m so proud of her. Of both of them. Of all my girls.”

“You should be, Babs. You run a tight ship and a great team. I’m glad you were my Batgirl.”

“Dick, you’re the glue of this crazy messy family and your even crazier messier teams. Even when you explode you’re the first one back to pick up the pieces. I’m glad you were my Robin.”

She watched as a bit of color rose to his cheeks. “Why don’t we call it a night? Nothing’s happening, we’re both turning into sentimental old saps, we might as well. I’ll pick you up a Cookie Monster sundae from that place on Front Street? What d’you say Babs?”

“I say hurry up Boy Wonder.”

#dc comics #batgirlandrobinweek #batgirlandrobin #barbara gordon #dick grayson #batgirl #robin #oracle #nightwing #jason todd #tim drake #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #damian wayne #hamilton #the batgirls are better than you #batbros #know your birds #this kinda got meta #writing #own writing #my fic

[jo-the-schmo]

Breaking... Ch.13

Breaking Masterlist

A/N: ‘m really sorry if this chapter feels kinda rushed and out of no where, I’m at a weird point in the story and I don’t know how to go around it yet so I’m really sorry you may have to suffer through this. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Wordcount: 2964

Warnings: Cursing (like more than usual), arguing, just generally being upset, revelations

Tags: @iamnotthrowingawaymyshit @renae-writes @deltablue202 @literally-melonkitty@meunicorn @favouritefighting-frenchman @demi-godamit @gum-and-chips @sweaterkitty-fluff@pinkyiger7 @littlemissshortcakes@msageofenlightenment @unprofessional-inhumanbeing@fandom-panda-221@hummusandchips @spoopy-piineapple @ashwolfcub @myself-and-the-madman @sweet-fate @superwholockbooknerd526 @frozengal2013 @lmaodedhaha@itsmikayblr @sarmar29 @arya-durin-77 @phantastic-fandoms @hoshihime98 @shinigamired @martapetrovic @robotic-space @iamnotthrowingawaymyshit2 (lol) @asprinkleofmermaids @pinkyiger7 (I’m tagging you twice my friend!)

Breaking Chances

This is it. It’s only a few more hours until everyone gets back and honestly you couldn’t be happier. The past two months working for Burr have completely sucked ass. Seriously if I have to hear “talk less, smile more” one more time I’m going to shoot someone. Aaron let you have these last few days off, just in case they came back early. You finally had some time to think, and damn were you doing a lot of it. You realized after your horse accident you need to be more careful. You’re about 99.9% sure that the voices you heard were from your timeline. And you were even more sure that you heard Anna calling out to you. God, I must be worrying the hell out of her… I’m so sorry Anna… Being away from the Hamilton’s was a wakeup call in it of itself. You’d gotten too comfortable being with them, they were practically your family at this point. You didn’t want to risk the universe but you were scared. You felt selfish and that made you more scared. You’ve majorly fucked up; you can’t tell what the backlash from your actions will be. But honestly, you didn’t really care, if that made sense. What you did care about though was how they would feel. What if you just woke up back at home? What if you didn’t get to say goodbye? So you found a way to fix that. Letters. If Alexander and Rachel taught you anything it was that writing solves everything. Or at least, almost anything. You wrote a letter to everyone, just in case something happened. You told Johnny that he needs to open up more, there’s nothing wrong with being a bit more reserved but he needs to be more confident in himself and his voice. You told Jamie that he needs to stop being so serious all the time, it’s alright to be responsible but he needs to lighten up! He’s just a kid, kids need to have fun! You told AJ that he can’t ever let go of his positivity, always think on the bright side and be there for the people he loves when they go through tough times. To Angie you wrote about her determination. She’s strong and intelligent, she should never lose confidence in her abilities. You told her to explore, not to force herself to be the ‘typical lady’, be someone no one has ever seen before! You told Alexander that he needs to relax, spend more time with his family, slow down on the work. Life is too short to let it fly by. For Eliza, your words were simple. Never lose hope, don’t give up. She taught you a lot and she needs to be proud of all the amazing things she’s done and will continue to do. Philip…that was a different story. You didn’t know exactly what to say and that made you question yourself. It was easy to write to the others, no second drafts, no redoes or anything. But Philip’s required many sheets of wasted paper. Nothing you put down felt quite right. How do I feel about him? I definitely care about him, I’ll never find anyone as trusting or as kind as him, especially not back home. Am I falling for him? Oh no, what if I already have? Shit, do I… Do I love him? No! I’ve only known him a year, I can’t say ‘love’ yet! And what would that even mean if I did? I don’t want to hurt him; I know I will. But still… When I fanaticize at night, it’s into Philip’s eyes. What should I do? He deserves someone who can make him happy… But what even IS love? Is it when you see someone for the first time and know you’re meant to be? No, love at first sight is silly. Is it when you miss someone so much that it feels like you’re suffocating? Possibly, but that doesn’t exactly have to be romantic I suppose. Then what is it? Whenever I read Philip’s letters…my mind feels fuzzy, that’s never happened before. If we read in the study, I end up not reading at all. I peak my head over the book and just watch him, try to guess what he’s thinking, guess what chapter he’s on, count his freckles. I don’t get distracted by anyone else. He makes me forget things, sometimes I don’t even remember that I’m from the future. I feel at home with him, even when we’re both awkward and don’t know what to say. I’m never bored with him, he always talks to me, he’s interested in what I have to say and I wouldn’t miss what he has to say for the world. If I’m feeling anxious or sad, he’s always the first one by my side, trying to make me feel better any way he can, and it always works. I can’t stand seeing him in distress, I just want him to always be happy, even if that’s literally impossible. I just love everything about him! Wait… Holy shit, I just said ‘love’! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, no! I…I love Philip Hamilton… Oh my god! What do I do?! Do I tell him?! Well duh, of course you tell him! Idiot! Nothing good comes out of hiding your feelings, but how do I do it? How do you even bring that up? Do I just blurt it out? No, then you’d look crazy! Real nice job, Y/N! You sighed and held you head in your hands. I never thought I’d ever feel so helpless… You looked up and out your window, the sun was high in the sky. Crap! They should be here any minute! You quickly put all your stuff away and ran out of your room, not bothering to check your appearance. Running down the hall and into the main room you heard a sound that made you both over joyed and incredibly nervous. You haphazardly moved some of your hair to sit over top the still healing cut, you hoped it wouldn’t scar so that your life could for once be a little easy. You stood in the middle of the room and waited for a moment. From outside you heard Eliza.

“We’re home everyone! Now children please grab your- Philip dear, where are you going? You need to get your bags!” You heard impatient footsteps on the steps and then the door flew open. Philip was there, waiting for a moment. A huge, dorky smile on his face, wide eyes. He looked so happy that you could barely see his freckles behind is smile.

“Star!” He called out excitedly as he ran towards you. He wrapped his arms around you, lifted you off the ground and span around. You gripped onto his shoulders cautiously.

“P-Philip! Come on! I-it’s only been a few months!” He set you back on the ground, you couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious as you looked up at him. You heard someone clear their throat and turned to see Alex, holding way too many bags. Eliza, holding a slightly bigger Willy than you remembered, and the children following close behind, but once the kids saw you they all rushed over.

“TT! I’ve missed you so much!” AJ yelled. Angie wrapped her arms around you, giving you a squeeze.

“Oh TT! You missed everything!” She pulled away. “I’m fourteen now! I’m a proper young lady! Isn’t that exciting?” She squealed. You chuckled, you missed her excitement. Jamie and Johnny both stepped up to you and shyly hugged your sides, you patted them both on the head. You looked up to see Eliza and Alex waiting to say hello. You walked over to them and wrapped one arm behind each of their backs. They gave you a gentle group hug and pulled away to look down at you. Eliza raised an eyebrow incredulously.

“Are you alright, my dear? You seem out of sorts.” Her voice was soft and full of concern.

“Um, yeah? I’m a bit tired but I would say I’m feeling okay.” Do I look sick or something? Philip stepped up beside you, Eliza and Alex walked around the both of you to check and make sure the children brought in all their things. Philip turned to face you, when he looked at you he seemed confused. Yet he was also amused by something. He chuckled softly.

“Were you writing before you came to greet us?” He laughed.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” He raised his hand to your cheek, he grazed your cheekbone with his thumb, your hair pushing out of the way as he did so. You didn’t even register what was happening at first. “You’ve got ink on your face silly…” His eyes suddenly widened. Oh no… He moved the rest of your hair, completely exposing the cut on your face. His eyes filled with something you can only equate to terror. “What happened? How did you get that?” He asked worriedly.

“Uh…Um, n-nothing happened?” What the hell am I doing?! He grabbed your hand and gave it a squeeze but now he seemed even more confused. He lifted your hand up and turned it in his own, making you palm visible. He focused on it, there were small almost scarred cuts on your hands. Damn you teacup!

“You’re lying; I know when you’re lying! Wait, why are you lying?” He asked with panic. “Did someone do this? Was it the suitor? Did he find you?” Who’s he talking…? YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME! No! Did he really remember that? Aw, he really does pay attention! Fuck, no Y/N! This is serious! You instinctively pulled your hand away and took a step back.

“I… I can’t…” You looked down at the ground, you couldn’t even look at him in that moment, you could hardly speak. I just found out I love him, how am I supposed to lie to him? But if I tell him the truth… it’ll crush him. I can’t do that; I can’t do that to him!

“You can’t what? Can’t talk to me? I thought you trusted me! We promised not to lie to each other!” He sounded genuinely hurt, you didn’t know why but you felt angry. Not at him but at yourself for getting into this mess.

“I don’t have to tell you everything Philip! It’s not like I’m your wife or something! And even if I was I don’t have to tell you shit!” You shot back. What am I doing? Where did that even come from?

“Well who even said I’d want you as my wife? Because I sure as hell don’t want my wife to lie to me!”

“What else do you expect me to do Philip? You wouldn’t understand! You’re just a kid!” You yelled. Philip’s eyes looked like they could pop out of his head, but for some reason you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I hate it when I can’t guess what people are thinking!

“So…that’s how you really feel, huh?” He asked softly. You didn’t move, your muscles were completely tensed up, your hands were clenched into fists and shaking. Philip let out something like a short laugh. “Of course, I’m such an idiot.” He turned and walked away from you, past everyone else and up the stairs. You didn’t dare take a breath until you heard his door shut. What did…Oh God… Philip, I’m so sorry…so sorry… You felt tears running down your face, your shoulders moving up and down with your cries. You covered your mouth to muffle the sobbing. Eliza and Alex were whispering behind you, after a moment you heard Alex speak to you in a calm voice.

“Y/N? Are you alright?” He stepped up to you and placed his hand on your shoulder, you shook it off. He began to say your name again but you cut him off by gathering your skirt and running to the door. You swung it open and rushed out. You didn’t know what you were doing, you weren’t processing anything, melting snow crunched under your shoes. The sun was warm but the air was sharp. You ran out of the yard and down the road, you didn’t realize where you were going, until you came upon that lamp post. The one that you woke up under on your first day in this strange old and new world. You stood in front of it and kicked it with all your might, not caring how badly it might hurt.

“Damn it! Why? Why me? I didn’t ask for this! Take me back! I want to go home! Do you hear me? Take me back!” You screamed, so loud it made your throat burn. Your knees hit the ground, you couldn’t stand anymore. You felt weak, and this time you couldn’t lie to yourself. “I’m helpless… I ruined everything!” Your vision was blurry but as you looked down at the ground, a small light flashed into your right eye. You wiped away your tears so you could get a better look at it. There was a small plaque at the base of the lamp post, you didn’t remember it being there before but it looked old and worse for wear. The only part you could make out was the end. “…nix? What?” The beginning was blocked out by some kind of metal fragments imbedded in it. It looks like…what is that? Broken shrapnel? Whatever it is, it’s making this really hard to figure out. What does ‘nix’ mean? That’s obviously not all that’s there. You heard footsteps quickly approaching you, you didn’t bother to look up. Whoever it was kneeled down beside you.

“Titania! You can’t just run off like that! Or at least tell us where you are going first!” Alex said, trying to catch his breath.

“…Alex…What have I done?” You asked as you continued to stare at the golden metal plate. Alex sighed.

“I’m positive that if you just-“

“Not that! None of this was supposed to happen… Everything I get close to ends up going to hell. What have I done to deserve this? How could I make such an idiotic mistake? I made the man I love hate me…” Alex was silent for a moment.

“We all make mistakes, some worse than others.” He placed his hand on your shoulder once more and you raised your head up toward the sky. “Look at where you are, look at where you started. The fact that you’re alive is a miracle. Just stay alive and that would be enough for him. Look at how lucky you are to be alive right now!” He said with fatherly optimism. “I can’t pretend I don’t know the challenges you’re facing. The words you keep erasing and replacing in your mind. But I can tell that he’s just as afraid. He knows that he loves you, he wants to grant you peace of mind. All you have to do is let him inside your heart.”

“But I’m scared… I shouldn’t be a part of the narrative in the stories they’ll write someday…”

“Yes, you should. Let this moment be the first chapter where you decide to stay.” He encouraged.

“But could I be enough? Would this be enough?”

“It will be enough.” He finished. You knew he was right, you made a mistake but as long there was even a slim chance at redemption, you knew you had to take that chance. Even if he still hates you in the end.

“When should I tell him?” You asked.

“Not now, I believe he needs some time to cool down. I would suggest apologizing in a few days but don’t confess your feelings just yet. You’ll both need time to adjust before you can accept your mutual fondness.” You nodded in agreement. It was probably best to keep your feelings a secret for now, at least until you both felt comfortable again. “While we are away from the others I have a question for you Titania. Rachel, she left with Cato didn’t she?” He asked, you turned your gaze toward him, obvious shock painted on your features.

“How? How did you know?” You asked curiously, he chuckled.

“When we heard from Mulligan that Cato was gone, everyone was shocked. That is, except for Betsy and I. We saw the way she looked at him, to us it was obvious. She’s a bit of a rebel, isn’t she? Laurens would be very proud of her.” He smiled. Wait what? Laurens? As in John Laurens?! Like leader of the first all-black battalion?! “She may not look like him but she sure as hell has his spirit!” He laughed. OH MY GOD JOHN LAURENS IS RACHEL’S DAD HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

“My friend is the daughter of one of the first anti-slavery activists in American history… And fell in love with the slave of one of his closest friends…while she was raised by the other…Wow…” Honestly at this point you had an incredible headache, you had a lot to think about and you told Alex that. He agreed and you both made your way back to the house. You immediately went into your room and fell onto your bed. Making irreversibly bad decisions is exhausting… I wish Rachel was still here…just so that I could talk to her. I wish Anna was here! Why do both of my green-eyed best friends have to be so far away?! If Angie was a little older I would have no issue with talking with here…actually her and Anna are pretty similar sometimes… I guess I’m just going to have to deal with this one on my own! Hopefully I’m not running out of time...

#hamilton #hamilton the musical #hamilton fanfic #alexander hamilton #eliza schuyler #Philip Hamilton #angelica schuyler #mulligan #lafayette #John Laurens #thomas jefferson #james madison #aaron burr #philip x reader #time travel au #CAN WE GET BACK TO POLITICS #hamilton an american musical